


the road less traveled (is not the one we walk together)

by FateChica



Series: diverge, converge, and reemerge [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, more characters/relationships to be added later, starts post s2, the start of my one woman attempt to rescue s3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26607022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FateChica/pseuds/FateChica
Summary: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel both.Mike and El grow and change together in the lead up to the Summer of 1985... and the rest of the world changes right along with them.(or, how we got from the Snowball to the opening scenes of Stranger Things 3.)
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair (background)
Series: diverge, converge, and reemerge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1935598
Comments: 50
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand, I'm back!!
> 
> I've been noodling on this endeavor for a while and been actively planning it for the past few weeks, so I figured it was time to get this ball rolling and putting pen to paper.
> 
> Welcome to my attempt to make sense of the character development (or lack thereof, in some cases) in season 3. This is going to be a very character-driven work with less emphasis on plot and more exploring the moments between, the ones we didn't get to see, and what was going on in our favorite characters' heads that took everyone from where they were in the end of season 2 to where they started in season 3.
> 
> This work is going to be canon-compliant. I honestly think I can see what the Duffers were going for in S3, but they didn't explain _at all_ what was going on inside everyone's heads and/or what they'd experienced that brought them to the people they were in S3. So I'm going to try and connect the dots and make shit make sense.
> 
> So, to that end, I'm first going to start by exploring the six months we _didn't_ get to see, the possible journey of how the stage got set for season 3.
> 
> (Also, I'm using the first couple of chapters of "love you like a love song" as a crutch/launching-off point, thus why one of my much earlier fics is the first entry in this series, so yay shortcuts!)
> 
> I hope you enjoy this and let me know what you guys think!

It’s funny how you can walk by a place a thousand times and never really notice it, but when there’s something in there you want _desperately,_ it becomes one of the most intimidating places on the face of the planet.

Or, at least, that’s how it seems to Mike as he stands on the sidewalk across from the Hawkins Police Station.

Mike’s been up and down this street more times than he can count and he’s never really even so much as noticed the police station before. But now, as he stares at it, it’s suddenly like he’s staring up into the mouth of the Black Gate about to head into Mordor.

 _God, seriously. Now is not the time for stupid Lord of the Rings references,_ Mike thinks, barely suppressing the urge to roll his eyes at himself. Still doesn’t make his nerves any less, well… _nervous._

The straps of his backpack dig into his palms from how tightly he’s clutching them and his fingernails dig sharp into clammy skin. His knees are weak and trembling, leaving him practically jittering through the concrete beneath his feet.

Mike’s so nervous and scared that he feels like he’s going to be sick. But he _has_ to do this – he just has to. 

It’s been 3 days, _3 whole days_ since the gate, since the day when El saved everyone from the evils of the Upside Down. 3 days since El literally walked back into his life and reawakened his heart, since he discovered that she’d been practically under his nose the whole time he thought she was missing. 

3 days since he last saw her, each one of them more unbearable than the last. 

If anyone had asked him just last week, Mike would have said that all he wants is to know that El is safe, that she’s alive. But turns out Mike is greedy or something because now that he has that, he knows it’s not enough, not _nearly_ enough.

No, Mike needs to see El again so badly it actually hurts, a literal physical ache in the middle of his chest that squeezes tight around his heart. And, in order to see El again, Mike needs to talk to Hopper. 

The thing is, though, that Mike really, _really_ doesn’t want to talk to Hopper. God, just the thought of Hopper – never mind actually having to be in the same room and talking to him – sets off a whirlwind of emotions inside of Mike: fear that his ask will fall on deaf ears; embarrassment at having a breakdown in front of Hopper after El walked into the Byers’ house and all but forcing the older man to console him.

But, most of all, there’s anger – deep, searing _anger._ Hopper kept El hidden away for almost an entire year, while Mike called out to her every night, frantically worried and hopelessly desperate for anything, any sign that El was ok, that she was alive. 

Instead, though, Hopper let him suffer and kept him and El apart and Mike doesn’t know if he’s ever going to get over it.

Ok, logically, he knows he will eventually – Mike knows he can blow up without much warning, but he’s also not the type to hold a grudge forever – but for the moment, Mike’s less than willing to forgive. It was a shitty thing Hopper did and Mike doesn’t want to forget that.

But he knows he has to suck it up. He tried finding El on his own – badgering Nancy to try and remember how to get to this cabin that Hopper and El live in didn’t pan out – so this is Mike’s only option. And if he doesn’t go to Hopper to ask to see El, Mike isn’t sure when or if he’ll ever get to see El again.

And he _needs_ to see her. It thrums in his veins, embedded in each beat of his heart. It makes his breath catch in his chest and his throat feel tight. Mike can no more ignore it than he can the pull of the earth’s gravity.

Part of it is worry, pure and simple. Every time Mike remembers the sight of Hopper carrying a limp, unconscious El, drained from closing the gate, his stomach does a nauseating flip. God, that moment is going to haunt him for the rest of his life: him waiting out on the porch swing in front of Will’s house; Hopper’s police Cruiser pulling up, tires crunching on the gravel; Hopper reaching in to the backseat of his car to take El into his arms; her limp form still and lifeless as Hopper carried her towards the house, Mike’s heart dropping into his stomach as he fears he may be coming face-to-face with his worst nightmare….

Thankfully, it hadn’t turned out anywhere near as bad as Mike had feared in the moment, but it still wasn’t good. El had been drained, knocked out while Mike sat nearby, cleaning off the gunk and grime on her face while she lay on the couch, everyone else in the other room as Hopper explained what had happened at the lab. 

She hadn’t woken up by the time Hopper carried her into Will’s room. And even later when Mike snuck into where she was sleeping, unable to stay away as he crawled into bed next to her, she still hadn’t stirred. 

El had finally woken up the next morning, still exhausted and struggling to stay awake. But Mike had only gotten to spend about a half an hour with El – and only half of that time alone – before Hopper swept El off into his car and drove off with hasty promises to let everyone know when El was recovered enough to have visitors.

The last image Mike has of El is of her in the front seat of Hopper’s car, staring back at him with a longing that still tugs on his every heartstring. It’s this that’s really behind Mike’s need to see El: the fact that she seems to have missed him as much as he’s missed her. 

Mike just hates being without El. There aren’t enough words for how much he’s missed her over the past year and all he wants is to just spend time with her, without being scared or having to hide. Honestly, that feels like it shouldn’t be too much to ask for… right?

Well, regardless, the only way Mike’s going to get to see El anytime soon is to suck it up and go in to see Hopper. And, so, with the image of the last time he saw El firmly in his mind’s eye, Mike swallows roughly and heads inside.

He’s never been inside a police station before and Mike’s first thought is that it’s… kinda boring. More like an office than he’d expected. Not that he knows _what_ he’d been expecting exactly – maybe something more menacing or darker.

The receptionist’s desk is just across from the entrance and the older woman sitting behind it reminds Mike more of his grandma than anything else, so it’s not the scariest thing in the world to cross the lobby over to where she’s looking through a stack of yellow slips with tired disinterest.

Mike shuffles over to the desk and clears his throat after a second, toe scuffing on the worn linoleum. “Um, excuse me?” he asks, trying desperately to keep his voice from cracking.

The woman looks up and peers at him through wide, thick glasses. She gives him a polite smile, the kind that can turn into a scowl at any moment if she thinks he’s up to no good or fooling around. “Can I help you, young man?” Her voice is stern in a way that makes his stomach curl up against his spine and Mike just grips the straps of his backpack that much tighter.

“Is Hopper here? Chief Hopper, I mean.” The words come out of Mike’s mouth stuttered and mealy, sounding awkward beyond belief. 

“The Chief’s a busy man, son,” she says, firm but kind.

Mike nods, hurrying to agree. “I know, I know. But….” He pauses, gulping. “It’s important. _Really_ important.”

The receptionist eyes him for a long, heavy moment – weighing, judging – before she sighs. “I’ll go see if he has a free moment. Who may I say is asking for him?”

Hope sparks in Mike’s heart. “Mike, Mike Wheeler, ma’am.”

“Well, at least you’re polite,” she says, just loud enough for him to hear. “You wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“Ok,” Mike says as she saunters off, leaving him awkwardly standing in the lobby of the police station. He looks around, trying not to meet anyone’s eye (and trying very much not to notice the curious, judgmental looks being thrown his way by the couple of cops sitting at their desks in the bullpen). 

Instead of focusing on any one thing, Mike lets his mind wander – mentally rehearsing what he’s going to say to Hopper, trying to picture where El’s been living all this time, imagining what it’ll be like to see El again – and it feels like no time at all until he hears the receptionist’s voice pulling him back to the present.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wheeler, but the Chief’s busy at the moment,” she says.

Mike’s heart squeezes in his chest. “Did you tell him who was here? That it was me?”

She smiles and the expression isn’t unkind, but it doesn’t do much to help as Mike’s stomach sinks down to somewhere near his shoes. “I can pass on a message, if you’d like.”

 _A message? Really?_ A written message feels insufficient to convince Hopper to let Mike see El. Like what would he even put into a note that would come close to expressing exactly why he should be able to see El, why he needs to see El? Mike can’t even think of what to say, disappointment robbing him of his words, and he just wants to curl up in a dark corner somewhere.

“No, that’s ok,” Mike says, eyes downcast as he slumps into himself. “Thanks, though.” Mike keeps his eyes trained down by his feet as he turns tail and slinks away in defeat.

The cold November afternoon air feels different than it did only 5 minutes ago. On his way over from school, the crisp air had felt exciting, invigorating, helping to ward off some of Mike’s nervousness and fear. But now, rejection fresh in his mind, the air feels numb and hollow, leaving him feeling empty inside with disappointment.

And, yet, with all the disappointment, there’s still anger. Oh, sure, it’s tired and sad, now, defeated as Mike is. But it’s there, crystallizing in his veins.

Mike remembers, after El disappeared and Will came back from the Upside Down, when Hopper told him and the Party that if they needed anything, that they could come to him. _Turns out that was a lie, too,_ Mike thinks with a scoff, kicking at the concrete beneath his feet. _Just like how he lied about not knowing where El’s been this whole time._

Hopper is nothing more than a big, fat liar, Mike decides, stewing in all the negative emotions that pulse through his veins.

But Hopper’s a big, fat liar who Mike needs to talk to if he’s going to get to see El again anytime soon, a thought that sours his stomach.

This is what Mike circles around in his mind as he aimlessly walks, moping all the while tuning out the rest of the world.

Mike’s so lost in his own thoughts that he almost doesn’t hear Mrs. Byers calling out to him. “Mike, honey? Is everything ok?”

Mike stops short as the familiar voice works its way into his brain and he realizes he’s passing right in front of Melvald’s, with Mrs. Byers taking what looks like is her break from work out on one of the benches in front of the store. “Oh, um, hi, Mrs. Byers,” Mike says, stopping mere feet in front of her and giving her a small wave. “No, everything’s fine. Just… walking.”

Mrs. Byers may not be _his_ mom, but she’s a mom and, like all moms, seems to have the ability to see right through his bullshit. “Mike, you don’t look fine,” she says, firmly but gently. A shadow passes over her face and her eyes go wide as panic starts to set in. “Is it Will? Is he ok?”

Mike hurries to respond, shaking his head as he holds out his hands. “No, no, Will’s fine. Um, we’re all fine. It’s not that.”

The shadow passes and panic is replaced with regular worry. “So, what’s bothering you, sweetheart?” Mrs. Byers pats the empty spot next to her on the bench. “C’mon, you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”

There are times where Mike wishes that Mrs. Byers was his mom and this is one of them. There’s just something so trusting about her, like Mike could tell her anything and she wouldn’t judge him. He doesn’t exactly have that with his mom and he’s not going to lie, he kind of envies that Will gets to have that with Mrs. Byers.

So, Mike sits down next to Mrs. Byers and sighs. “I just… I went to ask Hopper if I could go see El, but he was too busy to see me.” Even just saying the words out loud makes him slump over, practically curled up into himself on the bench. 

Mrs. Byers gives him a gentle smile. “You really missed her, haven’t you? Will’s told me you think about her a lot?”

A fierce blush crawls up Mike’s cheeks, but he nods. “Y-yeah. Sometimes, I wasn’t even sure if she was still alive, and I just – ” A strangled groan leaves Mike’s throat. “It’s just not fair. He could have told me.”

“Who, Hopper?” Mrs. Byers’ forehead is furrowed as she looks at him, trying to follow.

“Yeah, _him.”_ Mike’s almost spitting from the sudden surge of anger that hits him out of nowhere. “I could have kept it a secret. I wouldn’t have said anything. I would never do anything to put El in danger.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Mrs. Byers says with a soft sigh. “Let me let you in on a little secret. Us parents, we can be cautious sometimes, maybe too cautious. But it’s just because we love our kids. Hopper was just trying to do what he thought best.” She pats him on the arm. “And if it makes you feel a little better, I talked to Hopper this morning and El sounds like she’s doing better.”

Mike perks up at the news, anger temporarily subsiding. “She is? Really? Did he say when we could go visit?”

Now Mrs. Byers' smile is tinged with apology. “I’m sorry Mike, he didn’t say.” 

“Oh, ok,” Mike says, shoulders sagging once more. “Well, thanks for letting me know. At least El’s doing better.” He sighs and gets to his feet. “I should be heading home. Thanks, Mrs. Byers.”

Mrs. Byers tilts her head at him, like she’s trying to read him, but she’s still smiling in the way that only moms can. “Ok, Mike. Try to be patient, yeah? I’m sure you’ll see her soon.”

Mike doesn’t know if he believes that, but he smiles at Mrs. Byers in thanks anyway.

 _Maybe,_ he thinks. _All adults are just full of shit._

* * *

  
Jim barely makes it through the hellos with Joyce before she immediately starts laying into him. “You need to let the kids see El.”

The declaration goddamn blindsides him and Jim mentally stumbles a bit before he regains his footing, reaching out with one hand to steady himself on Joyce’s kitchen table. Joyce called him over to her house earlier that day with an offer of clothes for El and pre-made dinners for both father and adoptive daughter. To say that he was not expecting to be attacked is an understatement. “Excuse me, what? Where’s this coming from?” It’s been almost a week since everything happened, since the lab and the gate and all of it, and Jim’s still decompressing after all of it.

Doesn’t help that he has a recovering teenager back at home, making Jim worry with how she’s doing. It’s like El has a really bad cold, only without any of the sickness. She sleeps most of the day, drained like an old battery, and recharging is going slower than he’d like. 

But she’s getting better, slowly. Each day, El seems more and more alert. And, each day, the expectant look in her eyes grows that much stronger. She hasn’t come out and asked him yet… but it’s only a matter of time, honestly.

So it’s not that Jim hasn’t thought about what Joyce is demanding of him. It’s just that he really wasn’t expecting to get it from all sides. It’s bad enough that he comes home every day to El’s best puppy dog expression. He doesn’t need Joyce’s mama bear impression alongside it.

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me, Hop,” Joyce says with a harsh sigh as she crosses her arms over her chest. The fiery look on her face helps counteract the deep, grief-worn circles beneath her eyes and it’s just one more uncomfortable reminder of Bob’s ghost hovering in the corner like a haunting elephant. “I ran in to Mike the other day, looking like someone had kicked his dog. And he told me he’d come to see you to ask about Eleven, if she was ready for visitors, but that you were too busy.”

Jim’s hackles rise in preemptive defensiveness. He remembers Flo poking her head in to tell him that Mike Wheeler was wanting to speak with him. Jim had waved her off, too knee deep in paperwork dealing with the fallout of what had happened at the lab to be bothered with whatever Mike wanted.

Only, Jim knows what Mike wanted – knew at the time, too – and frankly, he’d been surprised that any of those kids had waited so long to come and see him about El… _especially_ Mike, given what El’s told him over the past year. He also knows that he could have paused his paperwork if he really wanted to. It wouldn’t have taken more than 5 minutes to hear Mike out and promise to let him know when El was ready to have people come over and visit.

It’s just, at the end of the day, Jim’s not entirely sure if he’s ready to open up the little world he’s built with El to other people. Yes, he knows that’s horribly selfish of him. He knows how much El’s missed her friends, Mike in particular. He knows it’s not fair to keep her locked up and tucked away. 

For the past few days, Jim’s been able to tell himself that he’s just waiting for El to get better before he talks about letting others see her. But Jim knows it’s _really_ because he’s scared of letting other people in, of sharing this little piece of domesticity he’s been able to carve out for himself. It’s been so long since he’s had this – since everything that happened with Diane and Sarah – that it’s all too easy to be selfish about this.

But, in the face of Joyce’s unyielding demand, of the just-shy-of-accusatory words, Jim knows he has to let go, at least a little. “Well, excuse me for trying to keep this little shithole of a town together, Joyce. Never mind El’s been sleeping more than not these past few days,” Jim says, pushing back. But there’s no fire in his voice and he knows he’s lost. “But, I guess she’s feeling better enough now that she could have some friends over.” He pauses, eyebrows arching as he points a stern finger at Joyce. _“Some_ friends. Not that entire little gang of nuisances.”

Joyce narrows her eyes at Jim. “Hey, my son’s one of that little gang of nuisances, as you put it.” She sighs, weight resting on one leg, hip popping out as she crosses her arms over her chest. “But you at least have to let Mike see her, Hop. Will’s told me about how much Mike’s missed her, how he wasn’t sure if she was still alive. It’s been a year, Hop. Give those kids a break.” She smiles, the curve of her lips almost a smirk. “Besides, you’ve kept that girl locked away for long enough. She deserves to be with her friends.”

Jim echoes Joyce’s earlier sigh. “I suppose you’re right.” 

“See, there you go. That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” Joyce smiles in a gently triumphant way that makes something in Jim’s heart twinge. He tries his best to ignore it and fails miserably, naturally.

“Yeah, yeah. Besides, it’d really make El’s day if I let her little boyfriend come over and visit.” The words are meant to be teasing, but there’s something sour and panicked in the back of Jim’s throat as he says them. 

_Her little boyfriend._ Holy shit, he’s so not ready for this. He’s just become a father again and already he’s having to worry about dating and hormones.

God help him.

* * *

  
It’s just after 6 in the evening and the inside of the cabin is completely still. It’s like someone pressed the pause button on the world. Nothing stirs, not even the air. 

El’s trapped in the same stillness as she lays tucked under a quilt on the couch. The TV is on, the evening news droning on, but El doesn’t have the energy to get up to change the channel and her powers are still too drained to do it with her mind. 

So El lets the news go on about Ronald Reagan’s recent presidential victory, even though she doesn’t fully understand what any of that means, while she waits for Hopper to get home.

And he should be getting home, soon. He’s been good about not being late these past few days, while she’s been recovering. Which is nice because El doesn’t have the energy to do much on her own – moving from her bed to the couch seems to be harder than closing the gate, even though it gets a little easier every day.

But El’s really starting to get tired of _just_ having Hopper for company. She thinks back to a few days ago, when she got to see all her friends, and it makes her heart ache with a particular kind of hopeful sadness. She wants that again, wants it so bad she can almost taste it.

But she _especially_ wants to be with Mike, wants to be able to hold and touch and talk to him and have him do the same. She just wants to see him again more than she’s ever wanted anything in her entire life. It’s worse than before because now he knows she’s here and El can’t imagine that Mike’s not trying to find a way to get to her. 

Not that El has any way of knowing for sure. Her powers are so drained that she can’t even slip into the void to find him, to see what he’s doing. And the not knowing is almost worse the need to see Mike again. It claws at her and itches beneath her skin. Hopper would describe it as her being ‘antsy’ and it’s times like this where El wishes she knew more words because it’s not just that she’s antsy.

It’s close enough, though, and that’s ok for the moment. It’s not like El has the energy to do anything about it, anyway, recovering as she is. She’s getting better each day, but it’s like she’s fighting through a thick fog. Every day gets a little bit clearer, but it takes everything she has for every little bit of progress she makes.

All of this adds up to one morose, superpowered teenage girl and this is what Hopper comes home to a few minutes later.

They haven’t bothered with the locks and the secret knock since El’s powers are still drained, so Hopper just walks in, only his booming footsteps on the front porch as a warning. “Hey,” he says as he steps in, bringing a rush of cold air with him. It feels shocking against the skin of El’s cheeks, but the rest of her is buried beneath a warm quilt and she doesn’t feel it. He closes the door, almost squinting at the TV as he puzzles out what she’s watching. “When did you start watching the nightly news?”

El shrugs beneath her quilt. “Too hard to change the channels,” she says, nodding at the recently fixed TV. It was one of the first things Hopper did when he put the cabin back to rights and El’s grateful for it. She doesn’t know how she’d sit in silence by herself all day otherwise.

Hopper makes a grunt of acknowledgement as he shrugs off his jacket. “How’re you feeling?” He walks towards her, hands undoing his holster, which he drops onto the coffee table as he sits on the opposite end of the couch from El.

“Better,” El says before she sighs. “Still tired.”

Hopper reaches out and lays a hand on her foot through the quilt, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Give it time. You’ll be back to normal soon.” 

El wants to scoff. Normal? What’s that? She doesn’t think she’ll _ever_ be normal. That sounds like something for other girls, girls who weren’t raised in a lab or who don’t have the power to move things with their minds. Normal girls get to see the boy they like without having to worry about being caught by the bad men and they don’t have to hide away from their friends.

God, what El wouldn’t give to be a normal girl.

“It’s good that you’re getting better, though,” Hopper says and though it’s awkward, El appreciates Hopper’s attempt to try and encourage her. “But, um, hey, here’s something I think you might like.” 

The upbeat tone in Hopper’s voice draws El’s eyes over, her head rolling against the arm of the couch. “What is it?” She doesn’t want to be hopeful, but it’s hard when he uses that tone of voice with her.

Hopper’s giving her a small, lopsided smile. “I was thinking this weekend, you could have a visitor.”

 _That_ perks El up like energy shot right into her veins and she sits up, eyes wide and heart beginning to race. “A visitor? Like Mike?”

Hopper’s smile dims a little, but he’s still looking at her with fond warmth. “Yeah, like Mike. Maybe one other person, if you want. Not too many people – we still gotta be careful, yeah?”

“No, just Mike,” El says. Yes, it’s true she wants to see her other friends, but what she _really_ wants is to just see Mike. “When?”

“How about Saturday? I work in the evening, but I can go and bring him here so he can keep you company.”

El does the mental math. Today is Thursday, so Saturday is two days away. Which seems so long, but El knows she likely won’t have the energy to spend time with Mike until then. At least, not in the way she wants to. “Yes, Saturday. That’s good.” El takes the boost of energy this news has given her and uses it to launch herself over to Hopper, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. “Thank you,” she murmurs into his shoulder.

There’s a bit of a pause, but Hopper hugs her back after a moment. “No problem, kid. I know you’ve been missing him. Sorry he couldn’t come sooner.”

El shrugs as she pulls back and slouches against the couch, energy quickly fading. “That’s ok. I’ve been too tired, sleeping a lot.” She looks at Hopper with determined eyes. “But I’ll be good by Saturday.”

Hopper chuckles and reaches out to ruffle her hair. “I can see that.” He glances at the TV and then starts to get up. “How about I make us dinner and then we can watch something else besides the news?”

El smiles and giggles a little. As much as she wants to see other people, she also does love this, these moments where she feels safe and cherished, like how normal kids feel with their parents. And maybe Hopper’s not her real dad – she doesn’t have any idea who might be, either – but she thinks maybe he’s becoming her dad anyway. “Sounds good,” El says. 

Hopper changes the channel to football before he heads into the kitchen and El sinks back into the couch. She’s not particularly interested in football, but it’s better than the news. And, besides, she’s now too busy thinking, _daydreaming,_ about Saturday and getting to see Mike to care about what’s on the TV.

The rest of the evening passes in a happy blur. Hopper makes them dinner and then they watch a movie that El only half pays attention to as she curls up against Hopper’s side, a good part of her thoughts wrapped up in Saturday – is Mike going to be able to come over? What are they going to do if he is? What is he going to think about the cabin? _What is she going to wear?_

There’s no slowing down the thoughts that race through her mind and El finds that it helps the time to pass by quicker. For the first time in days, she wakes up on Friday morning eager to get out of bed and, by Saturday, she finds she actually has some energy to go with that eagerness. And, when Hopper comes home on Friday and lets her know that Mike will definitely be coming over to visit, that eagerness goes into overdrive.

El channels that energy into not only figuring out what to wear and how to do her hair (both tasks that only end up hopelessly frustrating her), but also worrying about the cabin and her room. El is keenly aware that Mike’s house is way nicer than hers and though she’s pretty sure Mike won’t care about it, a stubborn part of her burns with shame. She just wants the cabin to be a place Mike wants to come back to and visit her, and she worries that it’s not.

But, for all El’s worry, none of it matters when Mike _finally_ gets there. 

El’s pacing back and forth inside the cabin – has been since Hopper left to go pick Mike up from Will’s house – when she hears the sound of footsteps shuffling up through the leaves that blanket the forest floor, followed soon by twin thumps on the porch, one heavier than the other. El moves to stand in the middle of the living room, in clear view of the door, and finds that her heart is racing furiously in her chest, making her almost tremble with excitement. 

And then the door opens, bringing Hopper’s rumbling voice in along with the cool November air before he walks in through the open door. But Hopper’s words go in one ear and out the other as Hopper moves out of the doorway and reveals Mike coming in behind him. 

In this moment, all of El’s worries and anxieties fade away. Because Mike’s _here,_ he’s finally here. El doesn’t have to hide away any more, doesn’t have to be kept away from Mike. 

He’s so _pretty,_ it makes El’s heart ache, with hair all messed up from the breeze outside and bundled up in a jacket and dark grey sweater to protect him from the cold. And when Mike’s eyes land on her, El can see the moment where his gaze lights up with happiness, like he’s the one who’s been set free instead of her. 

The next couple of minutes pass by in a blur – Hopper leaving instructions for the next several hours, Mike and El both nodding along – and then Hopper’s gone, leaving El alone with the one person she’s missed more than anyone. 

She moves without speaking, too overwhelmed to find words, and is overjoyed to find Mike doing the same, eliminating the distance between them in a matter of steps. El wraps her arms around Mike before she can even take another breath and the way Mike’s arms pull her close is the most addicting feeling in the world.

Mike’s jacket is still cool from the air outside and the iciness seeps a little into the thin fabric of the thermal El’s wearing, but El doesn’t care. Mike’s here and that’s all that matters. 

“You’re here. You’re really here,” Mike whispers, the words breathed against the skin right below El’s ear. 

El draws in a shuddering breath at the desperate relief in Mike’s voice and her lungs fill with the scent of him, of clean laundry and the outdoors and the warmth of the basement at his house, all things she’ll forever associate with him. “Yes, I’m here,” she whispers back. 

No more words need to be said and as El gladly loses track of how long they stand there, locked in a tight embrace, she can’t help but smile through the tears that cloud her vision. 

Because El’s home. She’s _finally_ home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, ok, this takes place _before_ the Snowball, but this is just the prologue. We're really going to get going starting in the next chapter.....
> 
> With El's first Christmas.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....I did not mean for this to take so damn long. It just so happened that my life first exploded and then imploded in somewhat rapid succession and I've been working roughly 50+ hours a week while a whole bunch of other life stuff happened. Plus, it's Politics season and that's monopolizing a lot of my brain power. But things have been a little calmer and most of this chapter was written in the past week or so, so I think I'll be able to settle into a better cadence going forward for a little while at least.
> 
> Anyway, y'all aren't here for my drama - what you're _really_ here for is to read about El's first Christmas....so, I hope you all enjoy!

El doesn’t know what to make of this whole Christmas thing, but she’s pretty sure she doesn’t like it. And it doesn’t take her long to start feeling that way, either – just the first few Christmas commercials she sees on TV is all it takes.

It’s an unfortunate consequence of how El grew up. Being raised in a lab, always on the knife’s edge between knowing what wrong move will bring punishment or not, taught El to be distrustful of anything she doesn’t understand. Being away from the lab and living it’s Hopper has helped and it’s a little bit easier every day to learn to let go of that distrust.

But old habits die hard and El finds herself wrinkling her nose every time a Christmas commercial comes on TV. Part of it is that whatever that jingling noise is makes El wince without fail, but what really gets her is that El just doesn’t understand Christmas and these commercials make it seem like she should in a way that makes her feel stupid.

El _hates_ feeling stupid. It’s like every day, there’s something that shows her something new she doesn’t know, something that highlights just how much she has to learn in order to catch up and be normal. And, more than anything, El just wants to be _normal._

The day she sees those commercials, El’s first thought is to ask Mike about Christmas – he’s the only one she can trust not to make her feel dumb for asking questions. But Mike isn’t going to be coming over for a couple of days. He has a bunch of tests he has to study for, is what he tells her the day before when he was over last and El asks why they have to wait so long to see each other again, and he needs to get his grades up so his parents don’t ground him forever and keep him from being able to come over and visit her.

(The wait is particularly frustrating, too, since the last time she saw him was the same day that Mike had asked her to the Snowball – _again,_ a tiny voice whispers in the back of her mind – and the way he smiled at her when she said yes made all El want ever since is for him to just never, _ever_ leave.)

So the only option left to El to get answers is Hopper. And she _needs_ answers. Because here’s the thing about El: even though she’s had to learn to be distrustful and wary, it’s because at her core, El is deeply curious about the world around her.

But until Hopper gets home from work, El is stuck with questions that have no answers, leaving her frustrated and antsy. She tries looking Christmas up in the dictionary to see if that’ll help any and, after a few minutes of figuring out how to even _spell_ Christmas, El finds the definition. But she doesn’t understand half of what the definition even says – _‘commemorate’? What’s that? And who is Jesus Christ?_ – so El gives up with a huff and settles in to unfortunately wait until Hopper gets home.

The sun’s long since set by the time Hopper walks through the door, startling her while El heats up bowls of leftover beef stew Joyce made for them. 

“Oh, thank god,” Hopper says, voice ragged, as he sees her in the kitchen. “You are a lifesaver. I’m _starving.”_

The praise warms El up from the inside out and her lips curl up in a shy smile. “It’s dinner time,” she says as if she’s not smiling as one shoulder lifts in a jerky shrug.

“So this is perfectly timed, then,” Hopper says. He barely manages to shuck off his jacket before he sits down at the kitchen table, holster still secured around his waist, and El joins him, a bowl in each hand. Hopper smiles at her before they both dig in and, for a little bit, there’s just silence as they eat, El’s bites more measured than the almost heaping mouthfuls Hopper’s shoveling in with a spoon.

But, after a little bit, the silence breaks, as Hopper sets down his spoon and gets up to grab a beer from the fridge. “So, kid, how was your day?” he asks as he opens the can, the question accompanied by a hiss of carbonated air. 

El shrugs as Hopper sits back down. “Ok, I guess.”

Hopper raises an eyebrow at her. “Did you do your worksheets today?”

El nods, thinking about the vocabulary and math worksheets she did that morning, before she settled in to watch TV for the afternoon. It’s like now that people know El is here – people _besides_ Hopper, that is – Hopper’s been more focused on having her do schoolwork, musing that it may be possible for her to actually _go_ to school next year. It’s only the thought of being able to go to school _like a normal girl_ that keeps El motivated enough to finish the work Hopper assigns to her. 

“Good, Good. You think you did ok?”

“Yeah, but you’ll check anyway,” El says, giving Hopper a fake glare. 

“Gotta make sure you’re learning,” Hopper fires back without hesitation. “So, what else d’you do today?”

Again, El shrugs. “Watched TV,” she says. And, the moment she does, the questions she’s been sitting on all day burst forth. “Hop, what’s Christmas?”

Hopper goes still, eyes going wide as he stares at her, spoon frozen halfway up to his mouth. It’s almost like El can see him processing what she’s just said, thinking about it until….

 _And, there it is._ It doesn’t happen _all_ the time, but when El asks Hopper a question, he gets this soft look in his eyes, full of sadness and pity.

El _hates_ it. It makes her feel weak and small, like there’s something _wrong_ with her – _oh, you poor thing, so sad._ El hates it because she’s _not_ weak. She escaped from the lab on her own. She saved her friends, closed the gate and saved the world. She’s _strong,_ powerful.

But she’s not when Hopper looks at her like this. Part of El _hates_ asking Hopper questions for this very reason. But her curiosity usually wins out over her emotional discomfort. 

So El braves the look of pity Hopper’s giving her and waits for an answer to her question. 

“Well, um, Christmas is a holiday – ”

Oh, El knows _that_ word. “You mean like Thanksgiving?” She learned all about Thanksgiving and what a holiday is from Mike a couple of weeks ago and even though she’s partially full from dinner already, her mouth waters at the memory of the dinner she had with Hopper at Joyce’s house.

A little of the sadness leaves Hopper’s eyes as he smiles. “Yeah, like Thanksgiving. It celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, originally – and I’m not super religious or anything, so I can’t get into that part – but these days most people use it to spend time with their families and they give each other presents.”

Presents, huh? El likes presents. Not that she’s ever gotten many – and most of them have been from Hopper – but they’re still nice to get. “When is it?” El asks, curiosity not yet sated. She knows it has to be soon since she’s seeing commercials on TV.

“December 25th,” Hopper says. 

El quickly does the mental math: 21 days until Christmas. “Oh, ok.”

The expression on Hopper’s face twists uncomfortably. “I’ve been meaning to get something together for it, speaking of Christmas. Get a tree, some lights.” He pauses, grimace fading as he grins a little. “Maybe some presents, if you’re lucky.” 

That brings a smile to El’s face, causing Hopper to chuckle and reach out to tousle her hair, and the rest of dinner is a happy, if quiet affair. After dinner, Hopper looks over the worksheets El filled out and then while he goes out to watch TV, El settles to bed in with the reading he assigned to her, a book she’s borrowing from Nancy called “A Wrinkle in Time”.

But, the whole time, even as she reads about Meg and her search to rescue her father, El can’t stop thinking about Christmas, what it’ll be like if Hopper does something for it. 

She also wonders if Mike and his family celebrate Christmas, if he gets presents or gives them to others. And, the moment the thought crosses her mind, a strange combination of excitement and panic jolts through her. 

There’s excitement because, what if Mike gets _her_ a present? And, if so, what might it be? But then there’s the panic that immediately follows: if he gets her a present, does that mean _she_ needs to get _him_ one in return? El doesn’t even know _how_ she’d get Mike a present, never mind what it would be.

The tug-of-war happening in her emotions leaves El feeling uncomfortably squirmy. It’s a mood that persists even after she wakes up the next morning and shuffles her way over to the kitchen table, to the point that Hopper calls her out on it as she sits down with him to eat breakfast.

“You ok, kid? You look a little… down.”

El looks over at Hopper, forehead furrowed. “Down?” 

“Yeah, down,” Hopper says as he slides a plate of eggs and toast over to her. “It’s another way of saying ‘sad’.”

 _Well, then why didn’t he just **say** that? _ El thinks, but doesn’t say as she bites back a huffed sigh.

“So… you wanna tell me why, maybe?” Hopper asks as he sits down across from her. 

El picks up her fork and taps the edge of her plate with the tines. “Christmas presents,” she says. And, when Hopper looks at her with confusion, she explains. “If someone gets a Christmas present, do they have to give one back?”

A soft, reassuring smile spreads across Hopper’s face. “Not if they don’t want to, no. Why, are you worried about giving out presents?”

“Yeah,” El says with a shrug of her shoulder. “Mike, my friends… what do I do if they give me a present?”

“Do you want to give one to them?” Hopper asks. “And, just so you know, there’s no obligation to give out presents. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

El wants to ask what ‘obligation’ means, but she thinks she gets a sense of the meaning from Hopper’s words. “But what if I want to? I don’t know _how.”_

At that, Hopper sighs. “Yeah, it’s not like you can go out shopping for presents or anything. But if you’re so concerned about this, we can always figure out something you can make for them. And it doesn’t have to be anything super fancy or nothing, either. The important thing about presents is that it comes from here, from the heart,” Hopper says as he taps his chest with his finger. “If you get someone something or make them something that you truly think they’ll like, then that’s what matters.”

Making presents? That’s an option? Well, that solves one problem. And while El doesn’t know what she could make that would be a good present for Mike, at least she has more options now than she did a few minutes ago.

El smiles at Hopper and feels the knot of anxiety in her chest unwind. “Thank you,” she says, quiet and relieved.

“You’re welcome,” Hopper says with an eye-crinkling smile. “Now, eat up before your breakfast gets cold.”

El’s day goes smoothly from there… or, rather, as smoothly as it ever does when she has to slog through the schoolwork Hopper assigned for her to do while she desperately misses Mike and wishes she could be with him or even just _talk_ to him. 

But then the next day comes and, with it, Mike’s presence at the cabin’s front door bright and early. By this point, El’s nowhere near focused on Christmas, all but forgotten in her excitement over Mike’s upcoming visit. 

Mike knocks on the cabin’s front door at 8:58 exactly, as El and Hopper are finishing up breakfast. El’s out of her chair in the blink of an eye, the second she hears Mike’s knock, leaving behind the last couple bites of her toast in her rush to get to the door. 

“Don’t trip, now,” El hears from behind her, but she’s too excited to pay much attention to Hopper’s teasing words. 

El draws in a shaky, if excited breath as she approaches the door, trembling hands smoothing over her hair and shirt in an attempt to tame either of them. One of the nice things about having other people know about her is that Joyce has been sending Hopper home with no end of things for El. And the most exciting of them is clothes that actually somewhat fit her. 

Now, El knows her clothes aren’t as nice as what she sees on TV or, say, what Nancy wears (which is still one of El’s benchmarks for “pretty”). And, yeah, she likes wearing old, hand-me-down flannel shirts from Hopper because they’re super comfortable. But she still wants Mike to think _she’s_ pretty. 

El doesn’t have many options to do that, though, but some of what Joyce has brought from the thrift store is better than most of what she’s had the past year. The shirt she’s wearing today is one of the shirts Joyce got her, a dark green thin sweater that’s just a little too big on her, but is soft against her skin and looks newer than anything else she owns. 

Her hair is still something of a lost cause, though, and El doesn’t know if she’s ever going to figure out what to do with the ever lengthening locks. 

But she can’t dwell on this for too much longer. Mike _is_ waiting, after all. 

El all but throws the door open in her excitement, barely remembering to undo the locks with her mind before she does. And when she sees Mike standing on the small porch, hands wrapped firmly around the straps of his backpack, bouncing on the balls of his feet with excited energy, El feels like she can finally breathe again. 

El doesn’t even think he has time to register that it’s _her_ who’s opened the door because the second their eyes meet, El launches herself at him, arms wrapping around him so tight it almost hurts. The air outside is cold, but all El can feel is _him:_ Mike’s arms holding her close, the press of his jacket against her chest, the straps of his backpack digging in near the crooks of her elbows… his breath, warm and shaky against her throat as he says her name with hushed reverence. _“El.”_

El says Mike’s name with equal weight, unable to hold back the flood of emotions that course through her. El knows that she maybe doesn’t have to hold Mike so tight, that maybe this deep, desperate need is a little much. But all her life, El grew up watching things getting taken away from her, watching things or people come into her life only to lose them at a moment’s notice, not knowing when the next good thing would come into her life… if it ever would. And maybe in time it’ll fade, but there’s a part of El that fears it’ll be days, months, _years_ until she’ll get to have this again.

So, until then, El’s going to indulge that selfish, desperate need that sits deep in her stomach and she’s going to hold onto Mike as tight as she possibly can. Which is ok because Mike holds on her to her just as tightly, like he’s afraid she’s going to disappear if he lets go.

El understands how that feels. It’s what she’s felt almost every day of her life.

But just because El wants, _needs_ to have this, doesn’t mean that the real world is going to let her have it on her terms. And, this time, the real world comes in the form of Hopper’s clomping footsteps as he comes up behind her, grumbling all the while. “Hey, quit letting all the warm air out,” he all but barks, but there’s a little bit of fondness mixed in with the annoyance.

El pulls away from the embrace (reluctantly so, mind you), but she grabs Mike’s hand as she pulls him inside just as Hopper reaches to shut the door. “Sorry,” she says, only kind of meaning it (she hates the cold, but she’d gladly suffer it if only she could hug Mike forever).

“Just… close the door first next time, will ya?” Hopper says. He looks over at Mike, who El notices is staring back up with a look that is somewhere between wariness and annoyance. “Mike.” The greeting is short and to the point, like a lot of what Hopper says.

Mike returns the favor. “Hopper.” But, he seems to think better of leaving it at just that, because then he clears his throat a little awkwardly. “Sir.”

Hopper reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Kid, enough with the ‘sir’ crap. How many times do I have to –” Whatever Hopper was going to say gets lost as a grumble takes over his voice.

El doesn’t mind because it gives her the moment she was looking for as she tugs on Mike’s hand, guiding him into the cabin. “We’re going to be in my room,” she says, not as a question, but as a statement, dragging Mike along behind her as she does.

“There is _not_ enough coffee to deal with this….” El barely hears Hopper mutter behind her, but it goes in one ear and out the other easily as she pulls Mike into her room and shuts the door behind them.

El turns after closing her door to face Mike only to find him looking at her with a peculiar mix of awe and amusement. A faint blush creeps up onto her cheeks at the warmth in his gaze and she feels herself go a bit shy, her insides turning all warm and gooey. “Hi,” she says in a hushed whisper as her lips curl up in a small smile.

The smile El gets in return is maybe her favorite of Mike’s smiles: wide, a little dopey, and totally and completely happy. “Hi,” he says, just as hushed, before his smile morphs into a lopsided grin. “Hopper going to be ok with you having the door shut?”

El’s brow furrows at the question and her head tilts as she puzzles out the meaning behind Mike’s words. “Why?”

At her return question, Mike’s eyes go wide and a blush rises up underneath his freckles. “I, um, oh – I mean, it’s not – it’s a boy-girl thing, I think… you know?”

El doesn’t really, but despite her curiosity, she can see that Mike is embarrassed and a little uncomfortable. And El wants this day to go well, so she shelves her questions for the moment (and she’ll figure out a better time to circle back around to this later). “Oh, ok,” is what she says, which makes Mike’s shoulders sag as he lets out a relieved sigh. Her gaze slides across her room (recently cleaned as of last night) and she looks back at Mike with a small smile. “Did you want to sit down?”

At that, Mike’s expression brightens, embarrassment giving way to excitement. “Yeah, whatever you want!” Together, they start moving towards her bed as Mike swings his backpack onto one shoulder. “I brought a bunch of stuff for us to do today,” he says as they sit facing each other on the edge of her bed, legs folded up between them. “Some movies if Hopper lets us watch TV – ” At this, Mike pauses, nose scrunching up a bit. “Is he going to be here all day?”

El shrugs. “Don’t know, but I think so.”

“Ugh, lame,” Mike mutters. “Anyway, I also brought some games – just small ones, card games and stuff – and a couple of books, too.” He shrugs, looking a little sheepish. “Or we could just… talk, if you wanted. Whatever you want, I’m good with. I’m just….” Mike trails off, voice getting tight with emotion. “I’m just happy you’re here.”

It’s not a flowery declaration of affection – nothing like what El sees on the soap operas she watches – but the sincerity of it hits her right in the heart, squeezing the air out of her lungs until she’s almost gasping. She wants to respond, but it’s like all the words have left her brain, pushed out by the overwhelming emotion that washes over her.

So, instead, she kisses him.

It’s a quick kiss, much like the handful of others they’ve shared over the past few weeks. There’s a tiny fraction of a second before Mike kisses her back, startled by her initiative, and El’s heart skips a beat at the feel of his lips against hers, warm and soft, a little chapped from the cold.

El’s cheeks feel flushed when she pulls back and it’s relieving to see that Mike’s face is red, too. It’s nice to know that she’s not the only one affected by this, that it’s just as overwhelming for him as it is for her. It’s nice not being alone, El decides, and there’s no one she’d rather experience this with than Mike.

Mike gives her a smile that is a little dopey around the edges. El loves how cute it makes him look. “What was that for? Not that I’m complaining,” he rushes to say.

It’s El’s turn to smile and a giggle bubbles out of her. “Just wanted to.” She sighs, feeling all tingly and lighter than air. “It makes me happy.”

“Kissing me makes you happy?” Mike says, smile growing even wider.

“Very,” El says with a little nod of her head. 

Mike lets out a laugh that’s breathless with how happy it sounds and it’s like his smile is trying its best to become a permanent expression on his face. “That’s… wow.” He shakes his head while he tries to find what to say. “You’re amazing, did you know that?”

El ducks her gaze, overwhelmed at the praise, and her face heats up even more.

And when she lifts her eyes back up to meet Mike, they both let out quiet, giddy giggles, happy beyond words. 

They settle, then, and Mike sighs softly as he reaches for her hand, weaving their fingers together. “So, how have you been?”

At this, El shrugs. “Ok, I guess. Bored, lonely. Hopper makes me study and do practice worksheets while he’s at work.”

Mike’s brow furrows. “Yeah, I can see how that would be boring. But if you can do it, then maybe you’ll be able to come to school with us next year.” He pauses, shrugging as he smiles. “It’d be nice, going to school with you. Then I could see you more and you wouldn’t be lonely during the day.”

“That’d be nice,” El says with a sigh. She squeezes Mike’s hand and smiles. “How were your tests? The ones you had to study for?”

Mike lets out a heaving sigh at El’s question. “So happy they’re over. They went good, I think, but it sucked that I couldn’t see you for a few days.” He smiles, perking up a bit. “But after next week is Christmas break, so I’ll be able to come over every day… well, except for Christmas Day, maybe.”

El’s stomach squirms at Mike’s mention of Christmas, but she _loves_ the idea of getting to see him every day. But there’s something that Mike said that she doesn’t quite understand. “Christmas break?” she asks, head tilted just so to one side. 

“Oh, um, yeah, sorry – you wouldn’t know,” Mike says, looking a little sheepish. “The school gives us time off for Christmas and New Year’s. It basically means I don’t have to go to school for 3 weeks. It starts after the Snowball.” His eyes light up at the mention of the dance. “Oh, hey, did Hopper say you could go to the Snowball?”

El sighs, for a couple of reasons. One, she’s glad they’re moving off the Christmas topic. And, two…. “No, he hasn’t said yet. Says he’s still figuring it out.”

At that, something in Mike deflates, shoulders slumping a little. “Oh.” He shakes it off a second later and squeezes El’s hand reassuringly. The firm, but gentle grip sends a thrill up her arm and straight to her heart. “Well, I’m sure he’s just trying to figure out if it’s safe,” Mike says in a way that sounds like he has the same doubts El has, but is trying to hide it. “Anyway, you never said what you wanted to do today. I don’t have to go home for _hours,_ so it can be whatever you want….”

The day goes on beautifully from there. They talk for a while, holding hands the entire time, and occasionally share shy, tiny kisses that make her skin tingle and her face heat up. At lunch, Hopper pokes his head into her room while Mike’s teaching her how to play War to let them know that it’s lunchtime and after they eat, Hopper announces that he needs to head back to the station for a little bit, so Mike and El snuggle up on the couch to watch movies until he gets back. 

And when Mike finally has to go home, despite how El immediately misses him, she feels lighter than air at the sweet goodbye kiss he gives her before he leaves, and happy that she got to spend so much time with him uninterrupted. 

El forgets about Christmas for a little while after that, especially as she gets swept up in worrying over if she’ll be able to attend the Snowball and then _actually_ going when Hopper says she can. It occurs to El after that magical night that she’s _happy_ now, happy in a way she’s never been before. There’s a magic to this time of year that she’s never gotten to experience before and El has Mike to thank for showing her the way, like he’s done so many times before.

But Christmas is _still_ a thing. It creeps into her life in the form of lights and garland and a tree that Hopper comes home with one day not long after the Snowball. El doesn’t mind the decorations – they’re actually _really_ nice – but she’s a little wary about what it all might mean, what _she’s_ going to have to contribute. 

It helps when Mike comes over the day after her and Hopper have decorated the cabin and only mentions how nice everything looks _without_ a word about anything related to presents. It’s only then that El _really_ lets herself start to get into the whole Christmas spirit. The decorations _are_ really pretty, she reasons. And the tree smells amazing and the songs that Hopper plays throughout the cabin in the evenings are nice to listen to.

Part of it is maybe that El’s starting to associate a lot of what Christmas is about with Mike. He’s over at the cabin nearly everyday, even when Hopper is at work, being with her, spending time with her. And in all that time, the Christmas tree or the twinkling string lights she’s strung around the inside of her room serve as a backdrop for everything they do together, whether it’s talking or watching TV or just sitting silent, enjoying each other’s company as the rain turns to snow and the days get colder.

But what _really_ turns El over to the side of loving Christmas is what happens on Christmas Eve.

Hopper’s home for the holiday and though he and El are going over to Joyce’s for dinner at her invitation on the main day itself, Christmas Eve is just for the two of them. Hopper has a whole day of Christmas movies and specials planned for them to watch and an attempted nice dinner all lined up, on top of all the hints he’s giving her about Santa Claus (who El _knows_ isn’t real after asking Mike what all the fuss was about over a fat man with a white beard) coming by to drop of presents for her. It’s cheesy, but it makes El’s eyes roll in the best way possible, guaranteed to get at least a small giggle out of her.

It’s around lunchtime when the outside world intrudes on what’s turning into a nice, quiet family day in the form of a knock on the door.

Not many people know they’re out there _and_ the knock is the same beat as the way Mike usually knocks, so El’s out of her seat before she or Hopper can even blink, heart leaping into her throat at the surprise visit – _he didn’t **say** anything about coming over today, _ El thinks with a combination of excitement and confusion.

“I’ll get it!” El announces as she all but flies towards the front door.

Hopper recognizes the knock as well, if the way he laughs and sighs gives her any indication. “Well, guess that’s my cue to start making lunch,” he says with a half-hearted grumble as El gets to the door. 

El does a quick check of her hair and shirt, smoothing both over as best she can. She wasn’t expecting to see Mike today, so she’s wearing a large, oversized flannel that was once one of Hopper’s and she’s barely managed to drag a brush through her hair, so she’s not feeling her best. But _Mike’s_ here, and that’s more than enough to make everything else nothing more than background noise.

It’s lightly snowing outside when El opens the door, showing Mike bundled up to protect against the light, fluffy flakes. And, further in the background, the Wheeler family car is parked just behind Hopper’s police cruiser, letting El know that Nancy probably drove them over and, relievingly, that Mike didn’t ride his bike over in the cold snow.

But Mike’s all smiles as El opens the door and El finds she’d much rather focus all her energy on _that_ than anything else. “Hi,” he says, all giddy and a little shy, bouncing on his toes a bit as he stands on the porch. “Can I come in?”

El sucks in a shuddering breath as she stares up at him (it seems like he gets taller with each day that passes and El wishes she didn’t love so much having to tilt her head to look him in the eye). “Why are you here? You didn’t say anything yesterday.”

Mike’s smile turns cheeky as he grins and the flush that spreads over his cheeks isn’t just from the cold. “I know, I know. I came over to surprise you –” The grin grows wider as he holds up his hands, a wrapped present resting between them. “With this!”

Almost immediately, a surge of emotion churns uneasily in El’s stomach as she begins to process what’s going on, as she takes in the sight of the present wrapped in bright green and red wrapping paper. “But I… didn’t get you anything,” she says, voice thin and thready, as she looks back up at him. Already, an embarrassed blush is creeping up her cheeks and her eyes are starting to burn with the very beginning of tears that are overwhelmed in a bad way.

But if El was expecting Mike to look disappointed at her announcing that she hasn’t gotten _him_ a present, it’s not what she gets. Instead, Mike’s smile softens and an impossibly understanding expression fills his face. “That’s ok. Besides, it’s not just from me. The rest of the Party, we pooled in together to get you something. Y’know, for your first Christmas.” At that, Mike pauses and his grin reappears. “I mean, it was _my_ idea but –” He breaks off, chuckling a little. “You know what, you’ll see in a sec. If, um, if I can come in, that is?”

El realizes she’s being rude by making Mike stand outside in the cold, so she steps aside to let him in. “Hop, Mike’s here,” she announces as Mike steps in over the threshold.

“I can see that,” Hopper says, even though he’s not looking from where he’s putting together a couple of sandwiches. He stops in what he’s doing to look over his shoulder. “Mike, didn’t know you were coming over today.”

Something in Mike’s posture goes a little brittle and a lot defensive, but he smiles all throughout it. “Just… wanted to bring over El’s Christmas present. I won’t stay long – Nancy’s waiting for me out in the car, so….”

El hooks her hand around Mike’s arm as she closes the front door with her powers. “We’ll be in my room,” she says, not waiting for either Hopper or Mike to say anything else. She doesn’t know if she wants to do this in front of Hopper, so El doesn’t waste any time in dragging Mike off in the direction of her room (it says a lot that Mike just _lets_ her do this without any real complaint or reaction other than following her easily, but she doesn’t know what it _means_ yet besides the fact that it makes her happy).

Mike pulls off the snow-flaked beanie he’s wearing as El shuts the door to her room behind him, present cradled easily in one arm, and they wordlessly sit on the edge of her bed after El gestures for him to sit down.

El licks her lips in a fit of nervousness, a habit of Mike’s she’s started picking up. “So, um, what is it?” she asks, looking at the present like it might reach out and bite her if she’s not careful.

At her question, Mike lets out a laugh. It’s a fond sound, not mean or mocking, and it makes El’s heart do a little fluttery thing despite the rest of her apprehension. “You have to open it to find out,” he says, a little teasing, but in a way that makes her stomach squirm in a funny sort of tingling flip.

El waits until Mike starts handing over the present before she reaches out to take it and her fingers easily circle around the wrapping paper that is cool to the touch from Mike carting it in from outside. This close, she can see that it’s not perfectly wrapped – the edges of the paper aren’t aligned with the edges of the box, the clear tape bunches and folds in a few places – but it’s a present _for her_ and so it’s perfect just as it is.

Which just makes her feel even _worse_ that she doesn’t have something to give him in return. “Thank you,” she says as she looks down at the present in her lap, voice thick with emotions that are almost too painful to exist inside of her. Sadness, guilt, the most bittersweet happiness she’s ever experienced – all churn heavily in her stomach, causing a lump of tears to build in her throat.

Mike must sense that something is wrong because he ducks his head to try and catch her eye, coming into view beneath her gaze. “Hey, everything ok? You alright?”

El braves looking straight into Mike’s eyes. “I should have gotten you something. I feel bad I didn’t.”

“Hey, _no,_ don’t feel bad.” Mike’s hand comes out to rest on her forearm, thumb caressing the skin of her wrist, just above the cuff of her flannel sleeve. “You actually already got me my present.”

“I did?” El’s brow furrows and she can’t help the small frown that pulls at her lips. 

At this, Mike blushes and glances away, shrugging like he’s trying to downplay it. “You came back.” His voice is so hushed, El almost can’t hear it. But she feels the emotion behind his words like a physical force. It’s his turn to be brave as he looks back at her. “It’s all I wanted and now I have it, because of you.”

For a moment, El’s speechless. In a heartbeat, all the negative emotions inside of her just burn away from the sheer force of love and affection that take over from Mike’s confession. She moves before she can even blink, emotion needing an outlet, and she throws her arms tight around Mike, present wobbling dangerously on her lap without her hands to stabilize it. “Thank you,” she says, words whispered into the fabric of Mike’s jacket.

Mike hugs her back just as tight and her heart flutters at the feel of him holding her so close. “No, thank _you,”_ he says. His breath tickles the side of her neck as he speaks. “Just don’t go anywhere ever again, ok?”

El nods against Mike’s shoulder and squeezes him extra tight. “I won’t, I promise.”

Mike doesn’t respond with words. Instead, he pulls back just far enough so he can look her in the eye. He holds her gaze for just a few moments, his eyes warm and full of endless affection, before he leans in and kisses her. 

All the kisses they’ve shared since the Snowball have had the effect of taking El’s breath away and this one is no different. Mike’s lips are warm, his kiss gently firm as his mouth moves sweetly against hers. One of El’s hands comes up to cup his cheek, needing to touch him like she just has to make sure he’s still here, like she just wants to hold him close forever. 

The kiss eventually comes to a slow end and El can’t help the way she gasps as Mike pulls away. She wishes it never had to end, but she doesn’t know how to handle it if it didn’t. 

Mike smiles shyly through the blush that creeps up onto his cheeks and a small, breathless laugh escapes him. “So, uh, you wanna open your present? Nancy isn’t going to wait out in the car forever.”

“I thought presents were supposed to be opened on Christmas Day?” El asks with a small frown.

“Usually, yeah, but it’s not, like, a rule or anything,” Mike says, shrugging one shoulder dismissively. “Besides, who cares if it is, yeah? I wanna see your face when you open your present. I just _know_ you’re gonna love it.”

Reassured (and, more than a little excited, El’s not afraid to admit), El lets out a bright giggle and goes to grab the present in her lap once more. 

It doesn’t escape El’s attention that this is the first present she’s ever unwrapped _ever,_ and her fingers tremble from the gravity of the moment. It’s her first Christmas present ever and it’s from _Mike,_ so it’s automatically the most special thing in the entire world. 

So, with gently shaking fingers, El begins the delicate work of unwrapping her present, fingernails carefully picking at the tape holding it all together. Mike doesn’t rush her and El can feel his eyes on her the entire time. Occasionally, she glances up at him to confirm that, yes, he’s still looking at her, the look in his eyes so warm that it makes her insides go all gooey. 

The box underneath the paper is plain, brown cardboard – no writing on it or any other kind of clue what’s inside – all El can tell is that whatever it is, is about as long as her forearm. It takes El a couple of seconds to find the tape holding it closed, but she slides a fingernail under the thin strip of tape once she does find it, popping open the top with ease. 

El has no idea what to expect when she looks inside the open box and it takes her a moment to recognize what she’s seeing. Because inside the box, gently nestled in what looks like newspaper, is a brand new Supercomm. 

A gasp sticks in El’s throat and she looks back up at Mike with wide eyes. “Is this…?”

Mike smiles and nods, face full of gentle excitement. “Yeah, it’s a Supercomm, like the rest of us have! Only this one is yours, so you can always be part of the conversation. And we can talk, just you and me, whenever you want… when I’m in range, that is.”

El knows she can boost the range with her powers, but she doesn’t have it in her to explain that right now. Not when the most overwhelming feeling of warmth explodes inside her chest. Her hand shakes as she reaches in and takes the Supercomm out of the box – _her_ Supercomm, that is, one of her very own that belongs to only her. Now she doesn’t ever have to be cut off from her friends, from _Mike_ ever again. 

El must be silent for too long because, while she’s staring down at the Supercomm in her hand, Mike rushes to fill the quiet. “If you don’t like it, it’s ok.” El can hear the beginnings of disappointment building up in his voice, but he’s trying to put on a brave front. “I just thought you might want to be able to talk to any of us. I know it’s kinda lame, but – ”

El cuts Mike off before he can say anything else, moving in a flash as she leans in and kisses him in a sudden, furious flurry of motion. Their mouths are a little misaligned, but the kiss still sends a shiver straight down El’s spine, _especially_ once Mike returns the pressure of her mouth against his, lips slotting against hers with practiced ease. 

El takes in a deep breath as she kisses Mike, lungs filling with the scent of him, and she can’t help but sigh as she pulls back. Mike stares at her with wide-eyed wonder, which always makes her feel all squirmy inside, and El hopes that Mike always looks at her with at least a little bit of that awe, like she’s amazing and precious and wonderful all at the same time.

El stays within a few inches of Mike, just far enough so that she can still hold his gaze. “I love it, _thank you,”_ she says in a hushed voice, not wanting to disturb the mood that surrounds them.

Something in Mike’s posture gives way and he lets out a heavy, relieved breath. His eyes slip shut and El finds hers doing the same as Mike leans back in – not to kiss her, but to press his forehead against, his breath fanning out against the skin of her cheeks and mouth. “I’m glad,” he says, just as quiet. “All I want is for you to be happy.”

“I’m happy – _very_ happy,” El says, gently nuzzling his forehead with hers.

“Good,” Mike says with a soft sigh. He stays pressed up against her like this for a few moments longer before he sighs again, this time resigned, and pulls back. “I should probably get going – Nancy’s gonna _kill_ me if I make her wait a long time, I just know it,” Mike says with a small grin.

El giggles and drinks in the way humor sparkles in Mike’s eyes. “That would be bad. You should go.”

“Don’t wanna,” Mike grumbles, even though he’s still grinning a bit. “But you’re right, I should.”

El sets aside the Supercomm as she and Mike stand up from her bed, and she reaches out to hold his hand while she walks him to the front door. She ignores the look Hopper gives them as she and Mike emerge from her room, fingers firmly intertwined, and instead focuses on saying goodbye to Mike.

“I’ll, um, see you in a couple of days?” Mike says as he opens the front door, voice rising like he’s asking a question, like he’s making sure she still wants to see him.

El nods, smiling shyly. “Yes, after Christmas.”

At that, Mike’s face breaks out with a huge grin and El feels her whole body light up with warmth. “Ok, I’ll see you then.” His gaze cuts away from her, checking somewhere briefly behind her, and it’s only when he ducks in for a quick kiss that El realizes he was checking to make sure Hopper wasn’t watching.

The kiss isn’t enough – long enough, deep enough, slow enough – but it’s still thrilling anyway and El barely gets a chance to return the pressure of Mike’s mouth before he pulls away, still smiling. “Bye, El.”

“Bye, Mike,” El says with a sigh, not wanting to see him leave, but knowing why he has to.

Mike gives her one last wave before he turns and walks back to the car where Nancy is waiting, leaving El to close the door behind him with a wistful heaviness in her heart.

“So, you two are kissing now?” Hopper asks, startling El, who had almost forgotten he was even there.

El levels her gaze on Hopper, but can’t stop the light blush that creeps up her cheeks. “Yes, is that bad?” It doesn’t _feel_ bad – feels really good, the kind of good that El never wants to end.

Hopper huffs out a quiet chuckle, but otherwise doesn’t show much emotion as he waves her over to the table. “No, but there might be a change in the rules if he’s going to be coming over all the time, if that’s the case.”

El doesn’t like the sound of that, but she also doesn’t want to cause a fight right now, so she just nods somewhat half-heartedly. “Ok.”

“Good,” Hopper says with a relieved sigh. “Now, go wash your hands. It’s time for lunch.”

El nods again, but doesn’t say anything as she turns and heads towards the bathroom to do what was asked. On her way, she catches sight of her open bedroom door, where the Supercomm is still resting on her bed. El can’t stop herself from taking a detour, heading into her room instead, like there’s a string connecting her to the small device. 

The plastic of the Supercomm is cool to the touch as El picks it up off her bed and her thumb goes to the button on the side to flick it on without much thought, easily remembering how to turn on the device. The radio whistles and squeals as it turns on and El’s just about to turn the channel dial when _another_ sound comes through the speaker: Mike’s voice.

“El, are you there?” Mike’s voice is a little muffled, but it makes El jump in surprise regardless. 

El almost drops the Supercomm in her surprise, but she manages to hold on and bring the device up to her mouth. “Yes, I’m here.” 

“Oh, good, you turned it on. I just wanted to say something before I got out of range,” Mike says. There’s a brief pause, El waiting with bated breath for Mike to start speaking once more. “Merry Christmas, El.”

Warmth blossoms out from her heart and El just about melts into the floor. “Merry Christmas, Mike.”

They say their goodbyes once more and as El goes to finally wash their hands, she gently puts the Supercomm down on her nightstand first, all but floating out of the room, heart lighter than she ever thought possible.

 _So this is Christmas,_ El thinks with a smile. _Yeah, I think I could get used to this._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww, El has the Christmas spirit, bless her. (thinking about why she's never had Christmas before makes me wanna cry, so let's not focus on that too much, shall we?)
> 
> Coming up next, a quick interlude with a different character and then Mike and El have a long overdue heart-to-heart....


	3. interlude: max

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was only supposed to take about a week.
> 
> I was getting close to finishing this, but then Election Day happened and sucked all the energy and attention out of the room for nearly an entire week. And, to top it all off, my cat got really sick and we had to let her go (literally hours after the election got called, so holy fuck that was a day), so it's really been a roller coaster of the last couple of weeks.
> 
> But, I'm feeling a little bit better now and what better way to celebrate that then by writing fic!
> 
> This chapter is a little bit different in that it's just the first of many small interludes looking at some of the other characters and what they might have gone through during the 7 months between S2 and S3. And, the first of these is for Max. So enjoy!

She will never admit this out loud – and if anyone ever suggested it, she would threaten to pound them into the ground – but Max is _nervous._

It’s not the good kind of nervous, either. Not like the kind she feels when she’s about to go on a roller coaster or when she thinks about seeing Lucas at school when she’s getting ready in the morning. 

No, this is the kind of nervousness that sits uneasily in the pit of her stomach and makes the skin on the back of her neck prickle. And it’s all because of El. 

It’s a few days after Christmas and the whole Party (which, somehow, Max is a part of now – battling interdimensional monsters will do that, she guesses) is getting together to hang out at Will’s house. It’s not the first place Max would choose to hang out – no offense to Will, or anything – but it’s the only place Hopper will let El go besides where she and Hopper are living.

(Which is really kind of shitty, if Max thinks about it. She doesn’t know much about what happened to El, but she knows enough to know that the other girl doesn’t deserve to be treated like a prisoner. If it were Max, she’d be out of there before anyone could blink, screw what anyone else thought.)

The reason Max is nervous is that the only two times Max has met El before have… not exactly gone well.

The first time was the worst, hands down. After nearly getting killed by demonic monsters from another dimension (and having to accept that there were _really_ such things as demonic monsters from another dimension), El had burst in like a hero and saved the day. 

Max had been awed (after managing to recover her breath from her brush with death) at the sheer presence of this girl who she’d thought gone or, worse, dead, the girl who had shown up like a badass superhero out of a comic book. And in those moments after Hopper and Mike had gone off to have a barely muffled discussion on the other side of the wall and El reunited with Dustin and Lucas, Max had almost been unable to contain her excitement. El was a real-life superhero – _of course_ Max would be dying to meet her. 

So Max can’t lie and say it didn’t sting a bit when she introduced herself to El, hand reached out to shake, only for El to brush past her like she didn’t even exist – or, worse, like Max had done something to wrong her. 

(Which was ridiculous since there was nothing Max could have done… right?)

In the moment, Max tried to brush it off – El was tired, she didn’t know Max, she was more eager to reunite Joyce than introduce herself to a stranger – but it had stayed with her for days, leaving her wondering what El’s problem had been with her. 

Max still didn’t have an answer by the second time she met El at the Snowball, even though it didn’t turn out to be much of an issue. Max hadn’t been sure if El was even going to show up and, when she finally did, she spent the night glued to Mike’s side, who looked happier than Max had ever seen him. Adding into that was Max’s own distraction in the form of Lucas, the brief kiss they shared on the dance floor, and her own musings about what it all means – are they dating? Is it serious? Is she going to have to start acting all girly and shit? – and it was no wonder Max and El barely interacted.

But Max is sure today’s going to be different. They’re all going to be hanging out together all day and her and El _have_ to interact at some point. They can’t just not talk to each other or acknowledge each other all day, right? And the concerning thought running around Max’s head is that El isn’t going to want to have anything to do with her.

It’s a problem, a _big_ one. The boys all _love_ El – hell, Mike practically worships the ground El walks on – and Max is sure that, push comes to shove, the boys would choose El over her. Which sucks because Max doesn’t have any other friends in this shithole and she is _just_ starting to feel like she’s found a new place to belong. 

Max can’t deny, though, that it would be nice to have a friend that’s a girl. She’s always gotten along better with boys than girls, but even Max can admit that she wants to have a friend who’s a girl, wants to be able to do some of the girly things all the other girls in her class get to do with each other, like sleepovers and doing each other’s makeup and stuff like that. 

Max thought that she could have that with El – with a girl who’s practically a super hero who saved the world with her awesome powers – but she’s increasingly less and less sure as the days go by.

A tap on her hand draws Max’s attention away from where she’s staring out the window at the streets that pass by. Dustin’s mom is driving her, Lucas, and Dustin to Will’s house, so Dustin is in the front seat while Max and Lucas are sitting on opposite ends of the backseat. And, in the front seat, Dustin and his mom are having a good spirited, if fond, conversation over the sounds of the radio playing. Which means there’s no one to pay attention as Lucas reaches over and taps Max’s hand. 

Max startles at the touch, but barely jumps in response before she turns to look over at Lucas, eyebrow arched in question. The sight of him, even bundled up as he is against the cold outside, makes a funny shiver run through her heart. She doesn’t know what they are exactly – are they boyfriend/girlfriend? They haven’t exactly had the conversation yet – but Max does know that she at least likes looking at him. 

“You ok?” Lucas asks, quiet enough so she can hear, but not loud enough that Dustin and his mom in the front seat can hear them over the sounds of their own conversation. 

Max nods, but she knows she’s bad at lying by the disbelieving look on Lucas’ face. “Yeah, just… nervous.” She pauses, thinking, chewing on her lip as she does so. “I don’t think El likes me.”

The confusion on Lucas’ face quickly gives way to a small smile. “She doesn’t hate you,” Lucas says. “El just… doesn’t trust people easy. She just needs to get to know you, is all.”

Something in the back of Max’s mind twinges at how Lucas immediately rushes to defend El, how he doesn’t even ask why Max thinks El doesn’t like her or take Max’s side, but Max quickly shoves it aside. After all, Lucas knows El – he _knows_ what he’s talking about.

Right?

A laugh breezes out of Max as she lets herself be soothed by Lucas’ assurances. “Yeah, of course, I’m sure you’re right.”

“I _am_ right,” Lucas says. His smile widens a fraction, showing the whites of his teeth. “You’ll see.”

Max gives him a small smile in return and goes back to watching the scenery go by, the churn of nerves in her stomach still there but not as bad as a minute ago.

It ends up being easy to mostly forget about her nerves when they get to Will’s house, too. Yeah, El doesn’t really interact much with Max (or at all) but that’s almost equally true for the rest of the Party except for Mike, whose side she spends glued to almost the entire time.

Mike doesn’t seem to mind _at all_ from what Max can see, his attention happily focused on El as they all sit around and play games and watch movies, Mrs. Byers hovering around the edges all the while. Max has to admit it’s pretty cute, if a little over the top. But there’s such a sense of relief that surrounds the two, enough that Max can feel even on the other side of the room, that Max can’t find it in herself to judge too hard.

She’s picked up a little from Lucas what Mike and El have gone through over the past year or so and not even she’s hard-hearted enough to fault them for a little bit of clinginess. It helps that Max doesn’t think she’s ever seen Mike more relaxed (seriously, it’s almost like he’s a completely different person) to the point that he’s completely stopped giving her a hard time for being the newest member of the Party.

But, even still, there’s a noticeable distance between how El interacts with the rest of the Party… and how El interacts with Max. If El even acknowledges that Max is there, that is. 

_Still better than the hard glare from that first night,_ Max reminds herself, thinking back to the dismissive glance El gave her before she pushed past. Today, El is at least just neutral, which Max considers to be some kind of progress.

But, eventually, Max lets herself stop worrying about it as the day goes on and her attention drifts to her own budding romance, not nearly as out in the open as Mike and El’s, but still undeniably there with how Lucas sits extra close to her or how her pinky sometimes brushes against his from where their hands rest on the ground. Max isn’t brave enough to outright grab Lucas’ hand, but it’s enough that he’s so close, which makes her feel all fluttery inside.

And when they all go home for the day – Max piling back into Dustin’s mom’s car with Lucas and Dustin, Mike hanging around until Hopper picks up El before waiting for Nancy to come grab him – when El says goodbye to the rest of the Party, she _also_ says goodbye to Max. Not as warmly as for the others, no, but civil if a little shy – as good of a victory as Max can hope for.

“See, that went pretty well, yeah?” Lucas says as he and Max make their way to Dustin’s mom’s car, bumping her shoulder with his. Max looks over in time to see him grinning at her, easy and confident (with maybe a hint of nervous excitement lurking in the background). “El just has to get to know you, first. She’ll come around.”

Again, the casual confidence grates against the worry in the back of Max’s mind. It reminds her a little of how her step-dad talks to her mom – patronizing, dismissive – and though Max knows it doesn’t come from the same place for Lucas, it still rankles nonetheless. But Max tries to accept the words in the spirit they were given in and she lets herself smile back. “Yeah, hopefully.”

Max lets the thought of that hope sustain her as she gets home just in time for what is becoming her mom and step-dad’s nightly argument, all sharp words and acidic tone and barely simmering tempers, Max preferring instead to think about the possibility of maybe making a new friend over the slow crumble of her home life.

And Max hopes that, one day, she’ll be able to add one more friend to the small but increasingly steady number that she has now.

_One day._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, that promised Mileven heart-to-heart.....


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, ok, I know it's been a while since I posted a new chapter of this thing. But, in my defense, it's 9k words long and it's been a really shitty month, so I'm just glad I was able to average about 2k words a week (yay pandemic and grieving and general anxiety for making me feel like shit). Also, I've been having a hard time writing on my computer (the blinking cursor mocks me), so I hand wrote pretty much this entire chapter... which made it _a joy_ to type it up, let me tell you, since, y'know, it being 9k words and all.
> 
> Anyway, enough about my troubles. There's a chapter to be read and I don't want to keep you from it any longer than I have to. Enjoy!

The thing is, El’s never told anyone about what happened to her in the lab.

She hasn’t told a lot of people a lot of things, actually. Like how she still hasn’t told Hop the full story of her adventure to and from Chicago – he knows she went there after going to find her mother, but he doesn’t still know what she got up to there and El thinks the only reason Hop hasn’t asked yet is that he doesn’t want to know (which is ok because El doesn’t want to tell him, either).

But the big thing really is that El hasn’t told anyone about what it was like growing up inside the lab.

It’s not that anyone isn’t able to guess at what it might have been like. El’s left her own clues and hints – in the things she doesn’t say, in the things she doesn’t know – but El’s never had the urge to tell pretty much anyone. She thinks Hopper knows something, or more than he’s said at any rate, but they’ve never talked about it and El doesn’t want to. 

Part of it is that, at first, El doesn’t have the words to explain what her life was like those first 12 years. The people who raised her, who _experimented_ on her, didn’t ever tell her _what_ they were doing – or even talk to her, really, unless it was to give her instructions or orders. Brenner was the only person to really talk to El outside of that, but even then it was babying and cruel, which El recognizes now that she’s out of that place. 

El has the words now, though, more of them than she had before at any rate. And she _still_ doesn’t want to tell people what happened to her. 

But just because she doesn’t want to tell _people_ doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want to tell _someone_. Of all the people El knows (and that’s not very many), the only person she ever wants to tell is Mike. And the only reason she hasn’t yet is because there hasn’t really been a good time to tell him. 

It’s been a couple of months since the Gate, since she finally, _finally_ reunited with Mike after almost a year apart _(353 days,_ her heart whispers with wistful sadness) and El’s been too happy in the time they’ve spent together to bring up bad memories of the past.

It’s like, when she’s with Mike, nothing else matters and she’s filled with the warmest, most sublime happiness anyone has ever felt. When El’s with Mike, what happened to her in the lab doesn’t exist and the horror of it can’t touch her, cast out by the brightness of his laugh and the sweetness of his mouth pressing against hers as he holds her close. 

This isn’t to say that if Mike asked her about it, that she wouldn’t tell him. There’s nothing El wouldn’t give him if he asked. But Mike hasn’t (even though she knows he has to be curious), so El hasn’t answered.

That is, until the blizzard.

* * *

  
Snow storms don’t roll through Hawkins too often, but they’re not unheard of either. Mike has many memories of mornings after a winter storm blows through overnight, waking up to a world of glistening, pristine white, snow piled high along the streets and begging for kids to come out and play in the winter wonderland.

Mike’s never had reason to be afraid of storms, either, safely tucked away in his bed or sleeping through the worst of them. He knows that some kids get scared of storms – scared of the loud noises or the whistling of the wind or the wild creak of tree limbs – but for some reason, it never even occurred to him that _El_ might be scared of storms. He knows she’s gotten startled by the sound of thunder – he remembers that from the night he met her – but scared? That just doesn’t compute.

El’s just so… _badass,_ if Mike had to pick a word. El is strong and amazing and full of more courage than anyone Mike’s ever met. In his eyes, there’s nothing she can’t do. She’s his _hero._

It’s not that Mike doesn’t know that El’s had a traumatic past. They haven’t talked about it, but he’s not an idiot. You don’t get raised as a science experiment and not have issues from that, after all. 

It makes Mike’s blood boil whenever he thinks about her being _raised_ in that place, in the lab. He thinks back to the time he spent in it – first worrying about Will before fearing for his own life – and the dark, oppressive nature of Hawkins lab is seared into his memories.

He can’t believe El grew up there and managed to be so _good,_ kind and sweet and fearless. But Mike’s beginning to think that there isn’t anything El can’t do if she puts her mind to it.

So he’s completely unprepared for what happens when the first big snowstorm runs through Hawkins.

It’s a few days after New Year’s and Mike is once again at the cabin. Getting here wasn’t easy today – it’s freezing cold outside and Mike has to bundle up in a gajillion layers to survive the bike ride over since no one was available to drive him over. But it’s worth it, it’s _always_ worth it. Getting to see El every day, getting to be with her and talk to her and show her all the things he’s been dying to show her… god, he would do _anything_ to be able to have this every day. So a bike ride during a frigid, January day is a small price to pay to get to see the girl who means everything to him.

It’s a weekday, a mere 5 days before school starts back up, which means that Hopper is at work, giving Mike and El the cabin to themselves, which Mike loves. (It also means that he has 5 days before he goes back to school and can’t come over every day like he’s been able to during Christmas break, which he _doesn’t_ love.)

And it’s a _great_ day. From the moment El opens the door and throws her arms around him, giving him a kiss that warms him from the inside out and completely erases any chill seeping in through his clothes, it’s like nothing bad can touch them. 

They spend the morning watching “Empire Strikes Back” (El loves both the fight scene at the end between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker _and_ watching as Han and Leia get together and if you’d have told Mike a couple of years ago that he’d be able to find a girlfriend who loves nerdy stuff as much as he does, he’d have called you crazy). And, later, they go on a walk out in the woods surrounding the cabin, gloved hands clasped tightly, while they talk about everything and nothing, conversation light and sparkling and full of quiet happiness. 

They make cocoa together once they’re back inside before they settle back onto the couch, curled up beneath a thick quilt to help ward off the cold. Mike teaches El how to play “Go Fish” and the way her eyes light up whenever she wins a card from him makes his heart do this squeezing, fluttery thing that is almost painful with how intense it is. Then, as the afternoon wears on, their attention moves partly back to the TV, where they manage to find afternoon cartoons playing, but also partly to each other in the form of long embraces and sweet, lingering kisses.

 _This_ part is new. Not the embraces – Mike and El can’t be within 5 feet and _not_ be holding each other, it seems (not that Mike’s complaining, like _at all)_ – but the lingering kisses, the ones that seem to bleed into each other and multiply more with every day that passes, _those_ are new in a way that Mike doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get enough of.

El’s lips are soft and sweet and she kisses him with an eagerness that has Mike hungry for more. Not _too_ much more, mind – he’s still only a few weeks shy of his 14th birthday, after all – but more nonetheless. And when they kiss, Mike can’t help the the feeling of awe that washes over him, mixing poignantly with pleasure and happiness. El is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen and the fact that she even _wants_ to kiss him feels like the most amazing thing in the universe.

This is how they pass the afternoon: cuddled up on the couch, watching TV when they aren’t wrapped up in each other and exchanging warm, leisurely but equally thrilling kisses.

In fact, it’s because they’re so wrapped up in each other that it takes them a while to know that something is wrong.

At first, there’s nothing _to_ notice. The afternoon wears on, the sun sets and gives way to evening, but this isn’t alarming. Hopper’s working late today and, when he gets back, the agreement is that he’ll take Mike over to Will’s house where he’s going to be spending the night. 

But, as the evening wears on, what Mike and El don’t notice, too caught up in each other and the TV that is now playing sitcoms instead of cartoons, is the snowfall that has started and gotten heavier with each passing minute. The sound of the TV drowns out the wind outside and neither El or Mike are aware that there is a storm until a gust of wind slams a tree branch against the side of the cabin. 

It’s the sound of that slam with its heavy, rattling thud that sends a jolt through Mike and El, yanking them back to the real world with painful clarity. 

Mike’s heart leaps up into his throat at the sound, startled as he is, but it only takes him a moment of listening past the sound of the TV to know what’s happening. _A storm,_ he thinks with a sigh, feeling his hands and legs buzz and fizzle with fading adrenaline. _Nothing to be scared of._

Only, that statement’s only true for _him,_ something which Mike realizes in the very next moment when he turns to look over at El. El, whose face has gone ashen white with eyes wide and fearful. El, his badass, superhero girlfriend, looking all for the world like she’s _thisclose_ to bolting and finding the nearest corner to hide in. 

At first, something in Mike’s heart seizes up, panic freezing him for a split second. He’s reminded of that first night, the night he met El in the rain as she was running for her life, and the look on her face right now isn’t so different from how she looked that night.

It’s that memory that washes away the panic, filling him with the same emotion that took over him that rainy night in November so long ago: the urgent desire to help this girl he feels an inexplicably powerful connection to.

Mike reaches for El, not a stretch given that she’s pressed into his side with her shoulder nestled against his upper arm, and lays a gentle hand on her arm. “You ok?” he asks softly, like he might spook her if he talks at a normal volume.

El turns to him and Mike can see that she wants to put on a brave face and say “yes”. But friends tell the truth and El is nothing if not unfailingly honest, for better or worse. “I don’t like storms,” she says after swallowing roughly, voice small and a little shaky.

It’s clear that El’s words, while the truth, are at least something of an understatement, but Mike doesn’t think right this second is the time to push her on this. Instead, Mike focuses on the wide-eyed fear, the way tension radiates along every inch of El’s back and shoulders, and the white-knuckled grip she has on the quilt draped over the both of them.

Panic begins to fill him once more, but this time it’s because he’s worried about El, not because he doesn’t know what to do. He’ll do whatever it takes to make her feel better and Mike doesn’t even need to think to know what the first thing he has to do is. “Do – do you want a hug?”

Mike can barely register El’s jerky nod of affirmation before she all but launches herself at him, leaving him scrambling to open his arms to embrace her. El’s arms snake around his torso and she immediately burrows her head against his shoulder. A flash of pride shoots through Mike at El’s enthusiastic response – that she trusts him enough to let him comfort her means he’s gotta be doing _something_ right. But the emotion is immediately tempered by how El is trembling against him and Mike wraps his arms around El’s shoulders, holding her close, letting her draw whatever strength or courage she needs from him.

A particularly strong gust of wind chooses this moment to slam against the cabin, followed shortly by the sharp, skittering sound of tree branches lashing the outer walls. El lets out a heart-wrenching whimper and tries to burrow even deeper into his shoulder. “Hey, shh, hey,” Mike says, not even thinking as he hurries to calm El. “It’s ok. It’s just the wind. We’re safe in here.”

El nods, the motion pulling at his sweater. “I know,” she says in a muffled, high-pitched voice. “Can’t help it. Don’t like storms. Sorry.”

“Yeah, you said.” A soft, gentle laugh breaths out of Mike and he just holds her tighter. “But I’m here, yeah? And it’s ok to be scared because I’ll protect you.” Mike cringes the second the words spill from his lips – she has superpowers and _he’ll_ protect her? _Get real, Wheeler._

But El just lets out a shaky breath as she snuggles deeper into his embrace, head fitting neatly into the space between his neck and shoulder. “Promise?” she asks, soft and filled with the most desperate hope.

Mike didn’t know his heart could ever feel so full with so many emotions and it almost hurts, chest feeling like it’s about to burst. “I promise, I got you.”

El nods again, but otherwise doesn’t say anything else. For a while, they sit there just like this – El curled up against Mike, his arms tight around her – and, every so often, the storm outside rages, setting off another flinch or whimper from El and Mike swears he holds her just that much tighter each and every time.

And, throughout it all, Mike can’t stop wondering: what made El so afraid of storms? He’s desperately curious and hungry for answers, but Mike knows this isn’t the time to push, not when El is buried against his shoulder, trembling with fear.

Mike wants to get up and something more to help El, figure out something to help district her from the storm outside – turning up the volume of the TV to help drown out the sounds, going to the kitchen to make some more cocoa… something, _anything_ to help El feel better. But El’s holding on to him so tight that Mike doesn’t have the heart to pull away.

In the end, though, it’s not up to either of them. They’ve been sitting there huddled on the couch for what Mike figures has to be at least 15 minutes when the radio tucked up along the wall by the TV squeals to life. “Kid, hey kid. Pick up, I know you’re there,” comes Hopper’s voice, a little staticky from the storm’s interference.

El lets out a startled yelp at the sound of the radio, but Mike feels her relax a little at the sound of Hopper’s voice. Mike unwinds his arms from around El’s shoulders and slides his hands until they’re resting right above her elbows, which are bracketing his ribcage. “You should answer that,” Mike murmurs, leaning back to try and get a glimpse of El’s face, still tucked up against near his collarbone.

As if Hopper is able to actually hear him, the older man’s voice comes through the radio once more. “C’mon, El, answer the damn radio. I’m freezing my ass off out here.” There’s a beat of silence before Hopper speaks once more. “You _better_ be inside, kid,” he says, tone heavy with foreboding.

Whether it’s the warning in Hopper’s voice or the way that parents can make you feel brave like no one else can, Mike isn’t sure. But, regardless of which it is, it gets El to unwrap her arms from around Mike and get up to answer Hopper’s call.

Mike stays where he is on the couch and watches as El goes to the radio, shaky hands fumbling with the receiver as she picks it up. “Hi, I’m here.” If El’s hands are trembling, her voice is remarkably steady and Mike’s proud of her bravery, even though he knows she’s scared.

“About time,” Hopper says with a sigh of relief. “You ok over there? Mike still with you?”

Mike squirms at the mention of his name, like a guilty child caught with his hand in the cookie jar even though Hopper knows he’s here. El, though, doesn’t seem to be afflicted with the same discomfort. “Yes, he’s here. We’re in the living room, watching TV.”

“Good, ok, good.” Mike thinks he can hear another sigh of relief embedded in the older man’s words. “Look, kid, this storm’s a bad one. It should blow over by tomorrow morning, but they’re telling us it’s not safe out there ‘til the sweepers come through and it’s too heavy out there even for them. So we’re gonna have to hunker down here overnight and you and Mike are gonna have to do the same at the cabin.”

At this, Mike gets up and goes over to where El is standing, suddenly needing a little comfort of his own. He’s not scared of storms or anything, but him and El having to fend for themselves while a blizzard rampages through Hawkins? What if something happens and Mike doesn’t know what to do? What if the power goes out or they freeze to death overnight? He and El are still just kids – they’re not equipped for this!

But there’s nothing anyone can do about it, if the tone in Hopper’s voice is anything to go by. “There should be plenty of food for you two, so you should be ok there. You remember how to start a fire in the fireplace, yeah kid?”

El gulps and Mike turns to look at her, hoping the answer is yes. “Yeah, I do.”

“Good, that’s good,” Hopper says. “I brought in a bunch of wood a couple of days ago, so you should have plenty. And there are candles and a couple of gas lanterns in case the power goes out that you should go grab after we’re done here. And under _no_ circumstances are either of you to go outside until I get there, is that understood?”

“I understand,” El says with a nod.

“Ok, good.” There’s a note of satisfaction in Hopper’s voice, but Mike doesn’t have long to think about it before Hopper speaks again, this time with another order. “El, hand the receiver over to Mike and give us a minute, ok? I wanna talk to him about something.”

El keeps her finger off the receiver’s button as she looks over at Mike, giving them a moment of privacy as uncertainty flickers across her face. Mike gives El a small smile, pretending to be more sure of himself than he really is. “It’s ok,” he says, holding out a hand to take the receiver. “I’ll tell you what he says. Or, if you want, you can just stay here and we won’t tell him.”

“No,” El says with a sigh, shoulders slumping a little. “He’ll know if I don’t.” She hands Mike the receiver and, with a small, shaky smile, shuffles off towards her bedroom.

Mike turns away when he can no longer see El and focuses his attention on the receiver in his hand. He draws in a deep breath before lifting his hand to his mouth and pressing the button. “It’s me, Hopper.”

“Is El with you?” Hopper asks, pointed and paranoid.

“No, she’s in her room.” Mike swallows heavily and tries to ignore the flutter of nerves in his stomach. He _hates_ that this man can make him feel so flustered – god, he’d do almost anything to make it _go away._

“Good. You’re a horrible liar, so I know you’re telling the truth.” The thrum in Mike’s veins starts to shift from nerves to anger – _ok, true, but does he have to be so **rude** about it? _ – but Hopper quickly shifts to concern in the very next breath. “You two doing ok over there? How’s El handling the storm?”

Annoyance still buzzes in the back of Mike’s mind, but he barely notices as his thoughts turn to El and the storm outside. “Yeah, we’re ok. We’re, um, just watching TV right now.” Mike very much leaves out the part about the kissing. It’s bad enough Hopper has a new rule about keeping the door open when Mike and El are in her room – he _really_ doesn’t want to get an earful over the radio when there are other things to worry about.

“And El? How is she?” Hopper prompts, sounding impatiently worried.

“She’s ok,” Mike says with a sigh. “She’s trying to be brave, but she doesn’t like storms.”

It’s Hopper’s turn to sigh again, audible even through the crackle of the radio. “Yeah, understatement,” he says. “Don’t know why – she won’t tell me – but they scare her. So, Mike, what I need you to do is look out for her until I can get there.”

At this, Mike gulps, a frisson of uncertainty skittering down his spine. “But that won’t be until tomorrow, you said.”

“Believe me, I’m the opposite of thrilled about this,” Hopper says, dark and grumbling. “But there’s no other choice. I’m gonna call Joyce to let her know I won’t be able to drop you off – any luck and your parents won’t call over there to check on you, but Joyce can handle it, I’m pretty sure.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about –” Mike doesn’t get to finish as Hopper cuts him off.

“And _no_ funny business, you understand me? This isn’t a sleepover, this is an _emergency._ So don’t think this is gonna be a normal thing. You sleep on the couch and El sleeps in her room, understood?”

Mike doesn’t think Hopper knows either of them very well if he thinks Mike and El (especially El) are going to follow that rule. But the thought is drowned out by the heat that floods his face and righteous indignation that Hopper would think Mike would at all take advantage of this situation. “Yes, sir,” Mike grumbles, wanting this conversation over with as soon as possible by this point.

“Good. I’ll try to check in on you guys later if the weather lets me get a signal out. And make sure you two eat a _real_ dinner, not just junk food, ok?”

“Ok.” Mike’s down to half-assed answers at this point.

“Alright, I’m gonna head back inside before I freeze my ass off. You two stay safe.”

Even if Mike wanted to reply, which he _doesn’t,_ he wouldn’t have even had the opportunity as the radio cuts off, connection disconnected. Mike holds the receiver in his hand, pulling it far enough away from his face so he can stare at it with a sour frown, before he sets it down on top of the radio.

The click of the plastic almost masks El’s footsteps coming up from behind, but Mike’s ears registers enough of the sound so that it doesn’t startle him when he feels her hand on his elbow.

Mike turns to her, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Hey, how much did you hear?” He’s not accusing, just curious.

El shrugs, but a small grin breaks through the pallor over her expression. “All of it. You two weren’t quiet.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mike says with a dry chuckle. His brain shifts gears, focusing on more important things. “You ok?”

At this, El looks away, gaze dropping off somewhere to the side, as she pulls her lower lip between her teeth, chewing nervously on the flesh. “I’m trying,” she says after a moment, gaze lifting to meet his eyes with bravery Mike knows she isn’t really feeling.

Mike doesn’t even think before he pulls El towards him and she lets him, the two of them wrapping up into another hug as easy as breathing. “It’s going to be ok,” Mike says against El’s hair, his turn to try and be braver than he feels. There’s so many things that could go wrong that Mike has no ability to fix… and he’s just going to have to deal with it. Because El is counting on him and he _can’t_ mess this up.

* * *

  
Dinner is quiet. It’s not physically quiet – the TV’s still on and Mike turned up the volume to try and drown out the sound of the storm, which only amplifies the static from the storm’s interference – but the whole _mood_ of the cabin is quiet, fed by El’s fear and Mike’s nervous worry.

Regardless, it’s nice to have Mike here, El can’t help but think as they scrounge up something to eat for dinner. There’s not a lot of talking as they heat up leftovers and El finds that this silence is… _comfortable._ She and Mike don’t _need_ to talk, which El really likes since she doesn’t always have the words to say what she wants to say.

But, once they settle back down on the couch, plates of unevenly microwaved food balanced on their laps, El realizes they _have_ to talk. Or, at least, she has something she wants to ask him and it’s almost enough to distract her from the low tense fear that races through her veins with a constant beat.

Across from her, Mike is almost vibrating with nervous energy and El knows enough to know that Mike is barely keeping himself from fidgeting. The thing is that El doesn’t know _why._ Mike is a worrier, El knows this about him, but she can’t tell exactly has him worried this time.

El knows that Mike would never voluntarily tell her. He gets weirdly squirmy about things for reasons El just does _not_ understand (sometimes she thinks it’s because she didn’t grow up with other kids, but sometimes she thinks maybe it’s a boy thing and if it is, El doesn’t think she’ll _ever_ understand it).

But if El asks him? Well, El’s starting to figure out that Mike has a hard time saying no when she asks him for something. And El’s not above using that to get the truth.

El sets her food down on the coffee table and turns to look at her boyfriend. There’s a moment, just before Mike’s fully aware of what El’s doing, where she gets to just _look_ at him. And, like always, El’s struck by the sight of him. _Pretty,_ her mind whispers even though she knows – she _knows_ – boys are supposed to be handsome. And Mike is, very handsome. But he’s so much _more_ than that and “pretty” is the best word El has to describe it.

But El has other things to do besides stare at her boyfriend all night, so she opens her mouth to speak. “Mike, what’s wrong?”

Mike had already been turning to look at her, but he startles at the question anyway. “Wh-what do you mean?” he asks in return. But El can tell Mike knows what she’s asking and she’s not going to let him play dumb.

“Mike.” His name falls heavy from her lips and she reaches for him, hand resting on his wrist just above the cuff of his sweater. El locks eyes with him and makes sure he’s looking back at her before she continues talking. “You don’t have to hide.” Focused like this, it’s almost easy to ignore the sounds of the storm happening outside. But the wind still howls and El’s skin still prickles with each gust.

Mike holds El’s gaze stubbornly for half a second before the fight seems to go out of him, his shoulders slumping as he sighs. “It’s just… we’re by ourselves, you know? And there’s a big storm outside and if something goes wrong, what if I don’t know how to fix it?” By this point, Mike has also set his food aside and El takes it as her cue to shift closer to him. Mike huffs out a groaning sign and slumps against the back of the couch. “I know, it’s dumb. We're safe in here and nothing is going to happen. I just–”

“You worry,” El says, cutting him off as she snuggles up against Mike’s side, head on his shoulder. “It’s not dumb. You can’t stop your feelings.”

Mike nods, his jaw brushing against her hair, and his arm wraps around behind her back. “Yeah, I know. I just want to keep you safe.”

Mike’s words make El’s heart do this warm, fluttery thing and, for a moment, it’s like nothing bad can touch her. “You do keep me safe,” El says as she lifts her head up to look at him.

There’s a smile growing on Mike’s face as he looks back. “Yeah?”

“Mm hmm,” El says with a low, sighing giggle. “And I keep you safe.”

“Already knew that,” Mike says, smile turning warm and teasing.

Unable to resist, El leans in and presses her lips to that teasing smile. Mike kisses her back almost immediately, his mouth warm and soft against hers. A familiar jolt of pleasure zips down her spine, making goosebumps break out across her skin, and El sighs into the kiss, letting herself get lost in the way it makes her feel all gooey inside.

But they can’t keep kissing forever – at least, not when there’s dinner that needs to be eaten – so they break apart a few seconds later, all shy, giddy smiles and blushing cheeks.

Dinner’s nice – _more_ than nice. El loves having Mike here – the two of them working quietly to heat up leftovers as they move easily around each other in the kitchen, snuggling up with each other as they eat dinner, plates haphazardly set aside after as they stay snuggled on the couch while the TV continues to play loud enough to drown out the storm. El wishes it could always be like this, just the two of them living quiet, happy lives. Yes, El could most definitely do without the storm, but having Mike here with her is all she’s ever wanted.

Eventually, it starts to get cold enough that El lights a fire in the fireplace and both of them take the opportunity to change into PJs. Mike changes quickly in the bathroom while El takes her time in her own room. When she comes out dressed in thick sweats and a flannel, she finds Mike standing in front of the TV, hands fiddling with the antenna.

He turns around at the sound of her footsteps with a sheepish look on his face. “I think the storm’s interfering with the TV,” Mike says, frowning a little. “Sorry.”

El’s gaze drops to the TV screen, which she can see now that Mike’s stepped aside. The picture is grainy where visible and snowy where it isn’t. And, even if El couldn’t see the screen, she’d know Mike’s telling the truth from the loud static that’s replaced the sound. “It’s ok,” El says, using her powers to flick off the switch.

But, immediately, the sound of the storm comes rushing into her ears and El flinches as the wind gives a particularly loud howl, like it’d been waiting until it had no other sound to compete against to make itself known.

“Hey, hey, it’s ok,” Mike says as he rushes over to her. He takes her hand in his and squeezes tightly. “I’ve got you, yeah? I’m here.”

El nods and takes in a shaky breath. “I know, I know, it’s just–” Another gust of wind cuts her off and a whimper bubbles up out of her out of her control. “Can we read together?”

Mike doesn’t need to ask to know what she means. Part of Hop’s condition for Mike being able to come over all the time is that Mike helps El with her studies, prepping her to go to school one day. Part of that help has morphed a little into them reading together… which is where the two of them snuggle up, usually on her bed, and El follows along while Mike reads out loud. They’re currently halfway through “The Wrinkle of Time” and El knows that the combination of the story plus the sound of Mike’s voice will help keep her distracted from the storm outside.

Mike seems to see that, too, because he quickly nods, eager to help. It’s one of the things El loves about him, that he never hesitates to do anything to make her feel better. “Yeah, we can do that,” he says with a smile. “Out here or in your room?”

“My room,” El says as she tugs on his hand and starts pulling him towards her bedroom. Mike follows easily and El lets go of his hand so he can grab the book off her dresser while she climbs into bed, sliding beneath the thick comforter covering the mattress.

Mike turns away from her dresser and there’s a small moment of hesitation before he heads over. He starts to climb on top of the covers, which makes El frown. “No, under. With me,” she says, not willing to budge on this.

Mike freezes, one knee on the bed, book clasped securely in hand. “You sure?” he asks, eyebrows arched up high on his forehead.

El nods, hard enough that the still-growing strands of hair at the nape of her neck brush against the skin there. “It’s cold and I wanna snuggle. Easier with you under the covers.” El knows she has a space heater in the corner she can use to keep the both of them warm and she’ll turn it on before she goes to bed as has become her habit over the past few weeks as the temperatures have gotten steadily colder. But, right now, she wants to feel safe and secure and snuggling up with Mike is a guaranteed way to feel that.

“Ok, sure, whatever you want,” Mike says with a small smile, cheeks turning pink (though El doesn’t know _why._ It’s not like they don’t snuggle under the quilt on the couch – why would her bed be any different?). But he climbs under the covers without any hesitation.

El wastes no time in curling up against Mike’s side as he settles under the covers and opens the book to the page they were last on.

For a while, there’s just this: Mike reading aloud, his voice soothing as he narrates Meg and Calvin’s adventures in her effort to save her father; El curled up against his shoulder so she can read along, filing away words she doesn’t know and their pronunciations. Outside, the blizzard rages, but El doesn’t even hear it as Mike’s voice washes over her. It reminds her of those 353 days, listening to him call out to her without knowing she was there, telling her about his day, how he was doing, asking if she was ok or saying how much he missed her. The sound of Mike’s voice is one of El’s favorite sounds in the world, if not _the_ favorite, and it’s almost scary how much she relies on it to make her happy.

But Mike can only read out loud for so long and, eventually, the worry of the day turns into exhaustion as the clock ticks closer to midnight.

El knows it’s over when Mike cuts off mid-sentence with a yawn, which makes her realize how heavy and gummy her eyes are. “Sorry, sorry,” Mike says on the tail end of the yawn.

El shakes her head. “No, it’s ok. It’s late.”

“Yeah, late,” Mike echoes. “We should probably go to bed. You want me to go? According to Hopper, I’m supposed to sleep on the couch.”

“No,” El all but barks out, arm wrapping around Mike in a strong hug. “Stay here.” El doesn’t know if she’ll be able to sleep with the storm going on around them if Mike doesn’t stay, so any other option is just unacceptable.

“Ok, ok, I’ll stay,” Mike says with a gentle laugh. “We should turn out the lights, though.”

El nods at Mike’s suggestion and she lets go of him long enough so they can finish getting everything ready for bed. All the lights in the main room get flicked off and El turns on the space heater while Mike flips the light switch in her room, leaving only her bedside lamp and the small nightlight plugged in by her dresser (for all that El is brave enough to face off against interdimensional monsters, she still really, _really_ hates the dark).

El can’t help but smile a little as both of them crawl into bed, facing each other with inches separating them, and she makes sure both of them are settled before using her powers to click off the lamp on her nightstand (as is her usual habit). In the dim light that remains, soft and intimate and _warm,_ the gentle smile on Mike’s face is soothing, almost romantic. And there’s a small part of the look in Mike’s eyes that is, as always, full of awe and a little disbelief. It’s a look that says he still can’t quite believe she’s here, that he’s amazed he gets to see her again. El knows this because she’s sure she looks at him the same way, because she _feels_ the same way, and El hopes that there’s always part of her that feels just like this.

Mike draws in a deep breath and tucks one hand up under his pillow. “You doing ok?” he asks, quiet and hushed, like the dim lighting won’t let him speak any louder.

“Yeah, I’m ok,” El says through a shuddering sigh. “Thanks, for staying.”

A smile crosses Mike’s lips. “Don’t mention it. It’s not like I could go home, or anything.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” El says with a sound that is somewhere between a groan and a giggle. “I mean in here, and not on the couch.”

“Oh.” Mike shrugs, smile softening. “Well, you asked, so….” He says it so casually, shrugging it off like it doesn’t mean the world to El. But El knows Mike has a hard time accepting praise, so she gets it.

A sleepy silence falls over them and, for just a moment, everything feels perfect. El would be happy if this moment just stretched on forever. 

But, as always, the real world doesn’t let El hold onto this kind of happiness for long as a powerful gust of wind rushes over the cabin, rattling the windows with almost thunderous intensity. Panic immediately rockets through El’s veins, making her jump and whimper, curling in on herself as she squeezes her eyes shut to try and block out the rest of the world.

“Oh, shit,” Mike says, all but hissing. His hand curls around her shoulder, pulling her close to him. “It’s ok, I got you.”

El goes willingly, letting Mike pull her into a burrowing embrace. She curls up into him, face buried in his chest while he rubs soothing patterns on her shirt between her shoulder blades.

There’s another silence, this one filled with El’s shaky breathing as Mike tries to calm her down, and it takes a couple of minutes before Mike breaks it with a question that El would answer only for him. “El, why don’t you like storms?”

The question, despite being spoken gently if hesitantly, still makes El take in a sudden gasp, air sticking in her throat and choking her a little as a different kind of panic fills her, the cold panic of her previous life. And, for a moment, El doesn’t know how to answer. She finally has the words, that’s not the problem. But where does she even start to explain the horrific answer to Mike’s question?

She must have been thinking about this for too long without a response because Mike hurries to fill it with deflecting reassurance. “It’s ok,” he says, words tumbling out above her head. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I’d understand.”

El shakes her head and lifts it enough so she can look up into Mike’s face. “No, no, I want to,” she manages to get out. “It’s….” She trails off with a sigh, hollow feeling creeping into her stomach. “I don’t know where to start.”

Mike just looks at her with the most gentle, infinite patience – not pushing, just letting her work her way towards a path forward – and it gives El the space she needs to figure out _which_ words she wants to say.

“I couldn’t hear storms in the lab,” she says, voice tight as memories wash over her.

Mike’s expression morphs into that curious, concerned on he gets whenever she mentions anything about her past in the lab, which – until this moment– hasn’t been much (and not because of the look Mike gives her when she does, though that certainly doesn’t help much). His forehead furrows, eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline, and the curl of his mouth is not quite a frown, but definitely on its way there. “Like, not at all?” he asks, voice hushed.

El lets out a hum of denial, shaking her head as she does so. “No. All the rooms I was in were underground. The first time I heard a storm was that night in the woods.”

“The night we met,” Mike murmurs, nodding along like he’s putting the pieces together.

“Yeah,” El says with a soft sigh. “And then, after the Demogorgon, before Hopper found me–”

“Wait, _found_ you?” Mike asks, voice rising as he interrupts her. “Where did he find you?”

El swallows roughly and fights the urge to look away. In all the conversations they’ve had about the year they spent apart, El hasn’t mentioned _at all_ the month or so she spent out in the woods, surviving on her own, until Hopper found her and took her in.

It’s those weeks that are the reason El’s scared of storms. The first storm she experienced, the night she met Mike, had been scary because El had no idea what was happening. But Mike and others had found her and brought her inside, out of of the worst of it. Yes, the sounds had been scary and, no, El didn’t understand why it was happening. But she probably would have mostly forgotten all about it if she hadn’t had to weather the next several storms on her own, out in the woods, surviving against the wind and rain and sleet as best she could with the very little she had.

And now, every storm that passes by brings back the tense, heart-pounding panic of those moments where El frantically would try to find some kind of shelter to huddle up in, never warm or dry enough, fearing every gust of wind because of the cold shock of rain or sleet that would follow and chill her down to the bone.

“He found me in the woods,” El says. “After the Demogorgon, I woke up in the Upside Down. And when I got out, I went to find you at your house–”

“I _knew_ it,” Mike says, barely breathing. “I knew I saw you.”

“Yeah, through the window,” El says with a nod. “But the Bad Men were there, so I ran, into the woods, where they couldn’t find me.” She looks away, hating how the emotions of that night come roaring back to life as she tells her side of the story. “I was there for a while, hiding. But, eventually, Hopper found me and brought me here.”

Mike goes still, lips pinched in an undeniable frown. “How long? How long were you in the woods?”

 _This_ is the only part El doesn’t want to have to say – because she knows how it’s going to make Mike feel – but she can’t lie, not to him. “I don’t know exactly, but a little before Christmas was when Hopper found me.”

Mike takes in an audible breath, the gasp almost painful with how ragged it is. “A little before Christmas? You were in the woods by yourself for five weeks?” His arm around her tightens as the emotion from the realization washes over him. “Oh god, El….”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” El almost whines, looking away. “The Bad Men were at your house – it wasn’t safe. And I couldn’t go back to the lab, I just _couldn’t._ Anything was better than that.” And it’s true – even with almost freezing to death and learning how to survive and forage for food – even with _all_ of that, it was better than being locked up in the lab, being treated like a _thing_ instead of a person. “But there were storms while I was in the woods and they were _so_ bad. Cold and wet and I could never get warm… I _hate_ storms. Every time there is one, it makes me remember being out there and I can’t stop it.”

El looks back up at Mike only to see the fiercest emotions shining from his face – sadness, worry, a hint of curiosity – and El can’t help but marvel at how opening Mike wears his emotions. He wears his heart on his sleeve, something El had learned at a young age _not_ to do. For the people who raised her – her _handlers,_ to use a word El heard Hop use – emotion or anything that could be seen as a weakness was something that could be used against her. And El learned very quickly not to let them have something to use against her. Because it never ended well when they did.

“The lab must have been really bad, huh? If living by yourself in the woods was better.” Mike’s leaning into sad curiosity now, worry shelved for a moment in his need to know, and El’s never been so grateful that she can read Mike’s emotions this easily.

“It was. _Really_ bad.” El draws in a stuttering breath, gulping a little on the air. “Did you want me to tell you about it?”

El can see, then, the way worry comes roaring back onto Mike’s face, fighting with the curiosity that’s still there, and El isn’t sure which is going to win out for a moment. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Mike says, chewing a bit on his lower lip. “It’s late a-and you’re tired.”

El hums in agreement. “I want to tell you,” she says, meaning the words despite the churn in her stomach at just the mere resurfacing of the memories of the first 12 years of her life. She wants to tell him because she knows he’ll help carry the burden with her – because maybe if she does, she won’t have to feel so afraid anymore. “But maybe tomorrow? There’s… a lot to say.” And there is a lot to say – from how she was taken from her mama, to the tests and the punishments, her cell and _her cell,_ the fear and neglect and pain… there’s so much of it that El’s surprised she can even carry it every day. But the boy laying in front of her helps, gives her the strength to fight and persevere and _grow._ And she doesn’t know how she’ll _ever_ repay him.

“Tomorrow’s good, no rush,” is what comes tumbling out of Mike’s mouth. “And you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, honest.”

“Mike.” His name, as it so often does, comes out of her with a soft sigh. “I _want_ to tell you, really.”

Mike tries to give her a small smile, but it’s shaky. “I just wish you didn’t have to say anything. I _hate_ that you were in that place. It’s horrible in there.”

El doesn’t have anything to say in response to that, but she appreciates the sentiment behind the words. “Thank you,” she breathes.

“For what?” Mike asks, head tilting into the pillow in his confusion.

“For caring so much.” El ducks her gaze, shrugging. “It’s nice. I’m not used to it.”

“You deserve it, though. You deserve _everything.”_ Mike’s voice is quiet, _reverent,_ and it makes El’s heart pound something fierce in her chest.

Emotion swells inside of her, too much to be contained, and it crests in a surge that has her moving towards Mike, lips meeting his before he can blink. He gasps against her mouth, but quickly relaxes into the sudden kiss, fingers pressing firmly against her shoulder blade as he leans in.

Part of El wishes she never had to stop kissing Mike – his mouth against hers is the most magnificent kind of sublime on the face of the planet – but it’s late and she’s _tired_ and the storm is still surging just outside her window, making her glad for Mike’s arm around her but too scared to fully relax into the pleasure of his lips pressed against hers.

So, El pulls back when the kiss comes to its natural and and, with a glimpse of the shy smile on Mike’s face that mirrors the one on hers, she curls back up into his embrace, head finding its natural resting place tucked up underneath his jaw. “G’night, Mike.”

Mike lets out a shuddering sigh and holds her just that much tighter, sheltering her, like he always does, from more than just the storm outside. “Night, El.”

And, as El falls asleep, she thinks: _if only it could always be just like this._


	5. interlude: steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *looks at calendar* What do you mean it's been two months? *looks at calendar again* _Holy shit, where has time gone?_
> 
> So....yeah. It's been a while, huh? I honestly never meant for this to happen, but life's just been so crazy! I've been working 60+ hour weeks and my husband and I adopted 2 kittens in the mess of all of this (they're the cutest little nuggets ever so I have less than zero regrets...which is only immediately ironic because I just typed those words and then one of them clawed me in the boob, lmao - go figure). Needless to say, life's been super busy. I've only recently had time to work on this (thank god) and this is the result! 
> 
> So I hope you guys enjoy a bit of an interlude with Hawkins' favorite babysitter as a bit of penance for me being gone from this fandom for two months. Here's to hoping life continues to be calmer!

Before Nancy, Steve wants nothing to do with being anyone’s boyfriend. There is  _ a lot _ he wants nothing to do with, actually – relationships, school, his parents’ broken marriage… no, those things are all too complicated.

Instead, Steve goes for the easy path, the things he doesn’t have to work for. He’s rich, he’s good looking, and he can charm the pants off of anyone (figuratively  _ and _ literally). And once he hits puberty? Hoo boy, it’s an entirely different game.

The world feels like it opens up for him, beckoning him with open arms, and offering him whatever he wants so long as he stays blissfully and lazily easy-going.

So, Steve doesn’t fight it. It’s much easier to flirt with a girl at a party (where both of them have maybe too much to drink) and suggest that they find a quiet place to talk (and “oh, did you want to see my dad’s Beemer? I think you’ll find the backseat  _ really interesting”) _ than it is to, say, think about why his parents don’t seem to want to be around him.

But, then, Nancy Wheeler comes into his life with her delicate beauty and prim, dainty behavior, all expertly masking a surprisingly steely confidence. At first, Steve is mostly just thrilled with the challenge of making good girl Nancy Wheeler misbehave a little – get her off her lofty perch and down into the dirt with everyone else. He expects that, underneath it all, she’s really just like every other teenager out there: horny and full of just enough self-loathing to be reckless. He figures he’ll have fun with Nancy until it runs its natural course and he’ll move on to the next girl who interests him.

What Steve doesn’t expect is for Nancy to turn the tables on him, to leave  _ him _ the one wanting more and then feeling sucker punched when it turns out she has other more important things going on that she prioritizes over him.

Sure, as it turns out, avenging your best friend by going after the inter-dimensional monster that killed her is actually  _ really _ important. But, at the time, all Steve can focus on, all he  _ knows, _ is that Nancy would rather hang out with Jonathan Byers, Hawkins’ resident weirdo, than be with him.

Steve’s not proud of the way he acts when he thinks Nancy is cheating on him with Jonathan and there’s only so much of the blame he can put on Tommy and Carol egging him on when he was hurt. He sometimes thinks his punishment for the way he acted is  _ not _ the beating he suffered at Jonathan’s hands (and rightfully so, Steve can concede, Jonathan’s creepy pictures aside), but the horror show he finds at the Byers’ house later that night and the monster he fights against with Nancy and Jonathan.

In a way, though, Steve’s kind of thankful for everything that happens that week in November. Yeah, it’s tragic what happened to Barb and Steve doesn’t know if Will Byers is  _ ever _ going to be the same after coming back from a literal hellscape of a parallel dimension. But Steve does more growing up in those 6 days than he ever did at any time in the 17 years that came before it and  _ that, _ he can’t regret.

And, for a while, it’s good. Yeah, it’s not perfect – there’s a little bit of trauma floating around for everyone (Steve’s comes in the form of nightmares and the haunting memory of that…  _ thing _ screaming as it thrashed beneath the flames), Nancy’s little brother becomes like a walking zombie, and the handful of glimpses Steve gets of Will Byers remind him more of a scared mouse than a boy.

So, yeah, not perfect. But it’s  _ good. _ Steve has become a boyfriend – something he never imagined himself being – and, what’s more, is that he  _ likes _ it. He likes the comforting feeling of Nancy tucked up under his arm or the feel of her hand in his as he drives her home; he likes the warmth of her kisses and the sparkling rise and fall of her laughter.

But, most of all, Steve likes falling in love, likes learning how to care for another person, how to think beyond himself and start looking to the future to see what a life built with another person, with  _ Nancy, _ could look like.

Too bad, then, that it’s all a lie.

“It’s all bullshit,” comes Nancy’s drunken slur, the look in her eyes somehow the clearest it’s been in months despite the sheen of alcohol in them. It’s this moment where the world crashes down around him, leaving Steve floundering and off kilter.

_ It’s over, _ is the refrain running through Steve’s head over the next couple of days. But he must be some kind of stupid because desperate hope swells inside of him anyway. He  _ misses _ Nancy, misses the guy she made him want to be, so Steve musters up all the courage he has, buys a bouquet of flowers, and marches over to Nancy’s house intent on winning her back (even though he did nothing wrong).

But instead of winning back his ex-girlfriend, he gains a handful of middle schoolers like he’s a mother duck and they’re his ducklings as he tries to protect them from monsters, supernatural and human alike.

It takes a few days for everything to sink in after yet another fateful November night, but the one thing that keeps rattling around in Steve’s head is what he said to Nancy as he sorted through a pile of junk in Mrs. Byers’ backyard: “I may be a pretty shitty boyfriend, but it turns out I’m actually a pretty damn good babysitter.”

At first, the part that Steve focuses on is the “shitty boyfriend” part. Because, yeah, he kinda was. Yes, Nancy isn’t a saint either, with the whole non-breakup breakup. But looking back on the year they were together, Steve has to admit that while he might have been a good boyfriend on paper – doting, affectionate, sweet – he wasn’t a good boyfriend where it really mattered, when it came to helping Nancy grieve.

Steve isn’t really good with “bad” emotions, like the kind that come from getting over the loss of someone near and dear. No, Steve’s go-to method for dealing is and has always been pretend like nothing’s wrong and find something fun to distract himself with until he’s not pretending anymore.

Nancy’s not like that. She prefers to tackle things head on, confront them until they’re not a problem anymore and get out other way. So Steve cajoling and  _ pushing _ her into pretending to be normal, not being supportive of the very things Nancy needed to get over what happened with Barb, was the absolute  _ wrong _ thing to do for Nancy. All it did was push Nancy to bury her feelings down deeper and deeper inside until they exploded and she pushed him away for good.

Yeah, she tried to brush it off the next morning, pretend it was just because she was drunk, but Steve knew. It  _ was _ over. And, he knows now, he’s just as much to blame as she is.

Not that it helps much. Especially not when Steve sees Nancy walking down the halls at school all but plastered to Jonathan’s side. This kicks off a flurry of whispers that seem to follow Steve wherever he goes and the pitiful looks flung his way do nothing to help his mood.

And, suddenly, where it once felt like Steve had everything, now it’s like he has  _ nothing: _ all his friends have fallen away from him over the past year as he got closer to Nancy; his now ex-girlfriend is on the arm of another guy; and everyone at school looks at him like he’s the teenage guy version of Little Orphan Annie.

The worst part is that Steve can’t even bring himself to be angry at either Nancy or Jonathan. It would be so much easier if he could, but there’s too much history there; Steve knows way too much about the demons both of them carry, knows too much about them as  _ people _ to cast them into the roles of the villains.

So, instead, Steve’s anger and sadness turn inward, leaving him writing in a pit of self-loathing so pathetic, Steve would have sneered at and made fun of it in any other person a year ago. Steve  _ mopes, _ shuffling around the house like a ghost as November passes and December takes over with its dreary chill.

This is, of course, when the other part of those fateful words Steve said to Nancy – “but it turns out I’m actually a pretty damn good babysitter” – comes into focus.

Dustin Henderson, in all of his nerdy glory, shows up at Steve’s house on a Saturday afternoon in early December, deftly avoiding explaining just  _ how _ he knows where Steve’s house is while begging him for help in what Dustin calls “a mission of utmost importance”, but is  _ really _ just him facing going to his first school dance and having  _ no _ idea what to do.

Steve ends up letting Dustin in with a long-suffering sigh – no sense in getting rid of him and, besides, it’s not like Steve has anything else he needs to be doing.

Only, and Steve doesn’t know this at first, it’s the beginning of a new pattern in his life, the start of a new friendship that is rewarding beyond anything Steve has ever experienced before in his life – and that  _ includes _ his relationship with Nancy, as bad as it ended.

At first, it’s just Steve giving Dustin pointers about how to ask girls to dance and tips on how to do his hair. The whole thing makes Steve feel very wise and old and the way Dustin looks up at him, both literally and figuratively, makes Steve very aware of the responsibility he holds in his hands.

And yet, despite how it makes Steve’s gut quiver with a sense of bone-deep dread of anyone looking up to him as a role model, Steve also kind of…  _ loves _ it. There’s a pureness to Dustin that makes Steve feel a little like a kid again and Steve finds himself kinda hoping that it never ends.

Like someone is finally looking out for Steve or something, that’s pretty much exactly what happens. Dustin goes home after that first day and then  _ he keeps coming back. _ Sure, some of it is to ask for advice or complain how Mike and Lucas seem to be prioritizing spending time with their new girlfriends over “the Party” (Steve has to admit, he’s a little afraid to ask what that means). But a lot of it is just them hanging out, Steve acting as something of a surrogate brother and Dustin helping to keep Steve from being the loneliest person on the planet.

As the months pass by, Steve stops wondering if Dustin is going to come by again… and, instead, starts  _ expecting _ it. This turns into getting invited over for dinner on a somewhat regular basis where Mrs. Henderson treats Steve with way more warmth and care this his own mom does and Steve feeling like he's both gained a new friend  _ and _ a brother at the same time.

So, in the middle of February, a few months after Steve started taking Dustin under his wing, Steve knows exactly who’s ringing his doorbell on a cold, quiet Saturday afternoon.

Steve gets up off the couch, letting the basketball game he’s watching continue on in the background, and wipes his hands off on his jeans as he shuffles over to the door, socked feet sliding easily on hardwood floors. There’s a smile on his face as he throws open the door and holds out a welcoming arm. “Henderson, lovely of you to stop by!”

Instead of an equally quippy response, what Steve gets in return is a tight, exasperated smile just visible above the wool of the scarf wrapped around Dustin’s neck. “Hey, Steve,” he says, tone just as frustrated as his smile. “Can I come in?”

For only half a second, Steve wonders where this down-in-the-dumps expression is coming from before he remembers, memory hitting him like a bolt of lightning. “Yeah, yeah, come in – it’s freezing outside.” Steve steps aside, but keeps one hand on the door as Dustin walks over the threshold. “But, wait, didn’t you have that little arcade trip thing planned with your friends?”

Dustin lets out a sound somewhere between a whine and a groan as he starts walking towards the den where Steve had just been, leaving Steve hurrying a little to close the front door and then follow after. “We  _ did,” _ Dustin says as he starts shedding his winter outer layers, haphazardly tossing them on the couch as he does so. “But Mike made plans with El for a stupid Valentine’s Day thing because Valentine’s Day is on Thursday and he can’t go over to her house on Thursday. Lucas and Max broke up because of a  _ different _ stupid Valentine’s Day thing, so Lucas is moping and doesn’t want to talk about it or do anything else. And Will has the flu, so he’s stuck at home.”

There’s layers of angst in Dustin’s voice and Steve’s heart goes out to the kid. Will being sick aside, it sounds like the plans all fell through because of girl-related drama. Now, Steve knows Dustin doesn’t have a crush on Max anymore so that’s not contributing to any of this, but it still doesn’t make it easy when half of your friends start worrying more about girls than spending time with the guys. And they’re just at the start of puberty, so this is only going to get worse, not better.  _ Girls make everything complicated, _ Steve thinks (though he’s sure girls say the same thing about boys, so what does Steve know anyway? Maybe it’s just  _ people _ who make things complicated) and he hopes Dustin and his friends figure out how to handle this part of growing up without too much trouble.

But, Steve knows, none of their luck is that good, so he fears the worst.

“Well, I can go with you to the arcade, if you want,” Steve says, already giving up on being able to finish watching his basketball game – he wouldn’t be able to even if they end up staying because Dustin  _ will now _ tolerate watching sports of any kind – and Steve finds that, really, he doesn’t mind that much at all.

Especially not when Dustin looks at him with an expression that brightens by the second, a smile of pure joy stretching across his face in a way Steve finds hopelessly endearing. “Really, you wouldn’t mind?”

Steve shrugs one shoulder in a lazy, casual way he knows looks cool. “Wouldn’t offer if I did.”

The smile on Dustin’s face turns a little mischievous. “Can we get shakes and fries after?”

“Why, you tryin' to make this a date, Norma Jean?” The lopsided smile Steve gives Dustin echoes the teasing tone of his voice and Steve almost loses it at the flat look on Dustin’s face he gets in return.

“Oh, ha ha,” Dustin says, giving Steve the finger for good measure.

“Language, Henderson,” Steve says, still smiling even as he nods at the winter gear Dustin just dumped on the couch. “Now, get your coat and stuff back on,” he says as he flicks off the TV. “The virtual battlegrounds await!”

A breathless laugh breezes out of Dustin. “So cool….”

_ Only because you make me feel cool, _ Steve thinks with a pang in his heart that radiates out along every fiber of his being, all warm and full of fondness. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Henderson. Now, less talking, more putting on your coat. C’mon, let’s go!”

That seems to light a fire under Dustin’s ass and he hurries to comply with Steve’s order, following Steve like a lost, little ducking as Steve gathers his own coat and the keys to his car.

They make their way to the arcade and, the entire time, Dustin is a flurry of stories and laughter, regaling Steve with the most recent goings-on and the upcoming nerd things he’s gotten himself so excited for, Steve listening intently the entire time.

It’s such a far cry from how Steve used to spend his time – parties and girls and alcohol – that Steve almost doesn’t recognize this person he’s turned into. But, as long as Dustin keeps looking at him like Steve is someone worth something – Dustin, who’s the smartest kid Steve’s ever met – then Steve finds that he really doesn’t miss the person he used to be at all.

Not one little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed this! Up next, that first Mileven Valentine's Day that Dustin so nicely mentioned for us......
> 
> (aka, where I write about how Mike ends up giving El 2 different Valentine's Day cards.)


End file.
